The Butterfly Effect 2
by Gramm485
Summary: On a mission for the organization, Ada discovers startling evidence of a conspiracy within the organization itself. But to pursue the truth of it, she must cast off her unwavering loyalty to her employers...that is, if they still are her employers.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Leon pushed through the heavy double doors that led into the GSA's secure interior. He didn't apologize for not holding the door for Hunnigan, who had only just caught up to him, balancing a laptop in one arm and a stack of papers under another. A Styrofoam cup was in her free hand, a PDA in the other.

"Coffee?" she asked, her voiced strained from keeping up with his brisk pace in her knee length skirt and high heels.

Leon took the cup from her. "Thanks." He sipped it, then made a face. It may as well have been a cup of steaming motor oil. The cup went into the next trash can he saw. He hoped Hunnigan wouldn't choose to be insulted...unless she had made it herself. At any rate, he really didn't care right now. He turned left at the T-junction, following the direction of the sign that said "Holding Rooms."

Bringing her here wasn't a good idea. It was the most logical idea, but still, that didn't make it a good one. What if this was just another plot, only this time, the GSA was her target? They were used to the organization sticking to the shadows. They might not even see an attack coming until it was too late.

_And it all just seems too easy, way too convenient._

Leon passed through another door, unlocked with a buzz after he swiped his keycard. The armed guard standing watch gave both him and the lagging Hunnigan a brief nod as they entered. There were less and less office personnel on this side of the door. Anyone roaming the halls here had a gun and knew exactly how to use it. There were cameras at every corner in the halls, and most doors were solid steel and electronically locked. It was the inner core of the Government Security Agency, the part that held all of the nasty stuff of humanity.

On a good day, the GSA was void of criminals. The kind of people that wound up in its cells were above average crooks, usually the kind that threatened the nation as a whole, mostly terrorists. Today was one of those days. All of the holding cells were empty, save for the one at the end of the hall. That one had a lot of security. Two guards with automatic rifles stood on either side of it, keeping intent watch for anything that seemed even slightly out of picture.

As he passed the door, Leon's heart rate increased. He tried to keep himself calm, but it wasn't working. He always got like this when she was around, and it always made his job that much more difficult. He would second guess himself, let his guard down. Despite being in the safety of headquarters, he felt tense, ready for a fight. Something was going to go down, he was sure of it.

Leon opened the door next to the guarded one. It was the adjoining surveillance room. Inside, two full walls were full of monitoring equipment. The third wall consisted of a single one way mirror that acted as a window to the holding cell. Two technicians sat at the consoles, monitoring the status of the recording devices for the holding cell.

His boss was inside as well, but he barely noticed him. Leon was more focused on the window to the other room. Inside the holding cell was a plain metal table, surrounded by four guards in the corners of the room with submachine guns. The four of them guarded the single flame of crimson calmly sitting at the table in a folding chair.

_Ada Wong._

The beautiful Asian spy sat confidently, back straight and head held high, chin up, as if the gray metal she sat upon was a royal throne. Her expression was neutral, her head cocked in lazy boredom as if there weren't several 9mm weapons trained on her. Beneath the table, her long, flawless legs were crossed, one black heeled foot slowly bobbing up and down as if it were a metronome keeping beat to some unheard tune.

Her curves hid it well, but she sat crooked. Leon immediately saw why. They made it a point to cuff her around the chair. That way, if by some chance she tried escaped, she would have to drag the chair with her. They didn't seem to want to take any chances, either. She was cuffed with a set of standard metal cuffs, then above and below them, two sets of plastic disposables. She wasn't going anywhere.

Seeing her under lock and key gave Leon some interesting thoughts. He hated to see a woman tethered down like that; it was almost cruel, like a butterfly trapped in a tiny net. But she didn't struggle. It was instead like watching a tiger on the other side of the bars. Beautiful and sleek, it simply sat and waited in its prison. It was breathtaking to look at, but as soon as you were in the same room and up close, you found out just how deadly it was.

Her light green eyes seemed to stare at him through the glass, though Leon knew she couldn't see him. It was just because she was staring straight ahead, and he happened to be standing in her line of sight. Still, it unnerved him like always; made him think twice.

Hunnigan kicked the door shut behind her after she entered, causing Leon to bristle internally. He hated it; he shouldn't be acting like a rookie, especially at a time like this, especially when she was around. But he knew that she was the source of his nerves.

Leon's boss, John Fischer, stood quietly sipping his own cup of coffee. He seemed to be focused deeply on the woman in red. After all, she was a part of the biggest threat to the country, even if the whole of the nation didn't know it. He had made it a personal goal to see this assignment through.

"Has she said anything yet?" Leon asked him.

Fischer shook his head. "No, nothing relevant anyways. All she's done is flirt with a few of the guards every now and then. Any suggestions?"

"She's not going to voluntarily give away anything," Leon said. "Not unless she has something to gain from it."

"We could offer her protection, in case Wesker sends someone after her."

"I don't think that's a good idea. If Wesker wants her dead, then I don't think there's anything we can do about that. We can try and protect her, but we won't be able to hold out for long. I think she knows that too, so our offer is bunk."

"Then we need to get any information from her as soon as possible, should anything happen. But this is America. I can't condone any illegal methods."

_Don't think they'd work anyway._

"Let me talk to her, one on one," Leon said suddenly. "Turn off all the recordings and audio."

Fischer looked surprised. "Kennedy?"

"We have a history, sir. I might get a little out of her, but you're just going to have to trust me. She might be more willing to open up if there's no chance of incriminating evidence."

Fischer paused and looked away, thinking hard. It wasn't the best idea, and Leon knew that. Ada might be restrained, but him going in there alone was potentially dangerous. But he knew that she would never hurt him voluntarily. He was more worried about Fischer shooting the idea down. He was one for protocol, doing things by the book.

"Okay, fine," Fischer said at last. "I'll give you ten minutes. Don't do anything stupid, Kennedy. This woman is a killer."

"Yes sir, I know."

"And I wouldn't be so quick to trust a damn word she says. You said you have a history together. I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt about what that history was, but don't forget that can work both ways, agent."

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, sir."

"Very well then." Fischer motioned to the techs at the instruments. "You two, shut everything down. Mics, recorders, video, make everything dead. Kennedy..." he looked to Leon. "I'll lock this place down. But we can't keep her here forever."

Leon nodded and turned to leave, brushing past Hunnigan on the way out. She whispered him luck on the way out. Out in the hall, the door to the holding cell buzzed open. Leon heard Fischer's voice over the cell's intercom, ordering the guards to leave. They filed out one at a time, leaving the way door open for him.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

2 weeks earlier

The orchestra flawlessly moved through the second movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Professional paid musicians effortlessly strummed out each note and chord that would break a lesser artist that tried to play them.

Crow sat in his private mezzanine of the theater, thoroughly enjoying the performance. The 9th was one of his favorite pieces; a score of controlled passion and madness. He would never get tired of hearing it again and again. He could enjoy Orff and Mozart, but Beethoven would always be the best, all because of the 9th.

Unlike issues in real life, music was something that stayed constant, yet at the same time, could be manipulated. It could be bended, molded into any shape one desired; harsh and forceful, or soft and melodic. If it sounded wrong, it could simply be erased and started new. It was something that would make the world so much easier if it could be applied to business. Beethoven saw that vision, and shaped it into his music. Pity that most thought of him as crazy.

It was a pity that Ada wasn't there to enjoy it with him. He had the best acoustics, the best view, and the best service, but no company. Going to a concert alone was depressing, and he felt like the only one without a date. Almost every person he saw, young or old, was coupled with the opposite sex. He would like nothing more than to put them all to shame with that extravagant woman around his arm.

Behind him, the velvet curtain that blocked off the private access from his booth silently swished open on its brass rings. Crow knew what was coming, but he settled for ignoring it as long as he could, not wanting to release his attention from the music. But like it or not, the head of one of his trusted operatives leaned close to his ear.

"There's a call for you," he whispered.

"I thought I said I wasn't taking any calls right now," Crow whispered back, the flair of his British accent mostly lost in the voiceless tone. "I'll take it after the performance."

The operative hesitated. "Sir, this is an important call."

Crow sighed and frowned. He knew what it was about as soon as he heard the hesitation in the man's voice. Only one person could be calling him with the ability to interrupt his leisure, and that meant he would indeed have to take that call. He got out of his seat and followed his operative out of his booth. Like himself, his agent was dressed to blend in, donning a tuxedo like the rest of the male crowd. It didn't mean that either of them were unarmed, though, like the rest of the guests.

Once out in the private hallway, his operative handed him a cell phone connected to a scrambled line. The music from the symphony was still quite audible, being that he was mere feet from his seat, only separated by a veil of cloth. Beethoven's music was far too robust to be blocked like that.

Crow took the phone and pressed it to his ear. "Yes, what is it?"

"_S has betrayed us,_" came a familiar voice. It was Albert Wesker. "_They've just killed our agent in their main research facility._"

Crow hissed in annoyance. "Dammit, Albert, why must you bring me such news in the middle of a concert? Did they get the parasite?"

"_No. Fortunately for us, he wasn't stupid._ _The main specimen is still safe in our hands. Without it, any data S gathered from it is useless. The agent was able to activate the failsafe and all of the data has been erased. As of now, they have nothing._"

"At least that's some good news," Crow admitted as he casually paced the width of the hall. His operative stood near the only entrance, keeping eye for stray passerbys.

Crow liked Wesker, from a business standpoint. He was quick and efficient, never losing sight of the main goal at hand. He was full of ideas, and was a gifted scientist as well. As a person, Crow didn't trust him one bit. The man was quick to look out for himself, and had stabbed several backs in the past to further his own agenda. Not exactly someone to turn a casual eye to...Then, of course, there was his very nature. Was Wesker even human anymore?

"What do you propose we do?" Crow asked Wesker on the other side of the line. "How far were you into the research?"

"_Not very. Now we have nothing. And without S, I lack both the facilities and the manpower to continue._"

"We need another company," Crow realized. "S was the closest competitor to the former Umbrella Corporation. They've proven they can't be trusted to their word, so we'll need to find someone else with similar motives." Crow thought for a moment. Unbeknownst to the general public, the market for bioweapons had become quite large. There were a number of companies to choose from. Then it hit him. "Tricell. Perfect. They purchased WilPharma after the Hardville incident. Right now, their company is without a CEO. It would just be a matter of selecting one of the candidates applying for the seat and bending them to our will."

"_Tricell, you're sure?_" Wesker's voice sounded dubious, but he seemed to agree. "_I'll leave the negotiations to you then. There's another matter as well,_" he added. "_S betrayed us because they found out that the organization was disbanded._"

Crow's eyes narrowed. "Oh really? How did they discover that?"

"_It was revealed to them by a rogue agent. Someone discovered our pact, then told S about it. I don't know if it was their intentions to try and stop us personally, but as of this moment, we should probably assume that and take the necessary steps._"

"Ah, I see where this is going, Albert. You suspect Miss Wong."

There was no love lost between Ada Wong and Wesker. She served him faithfully for years, and he tried on several occasions to write her off when his plans changed. Understandably, they were both a bit wary of each other. But right now, Ada was oblivious to what had happened with the organization. Crow could convince Wesker that Ada was still useful as long as he could continue to keep it that way.

"_Surprisingly, it wasn't her. What little sound evidence I have of the whole affair points to one of our men. It's Donovan._"

"Donovan?" Crow asked, surprised. "He's been out of the country for the past week."

"_That's what he wants us to think. I told you we should have removed him when we had the chance..._"

"Yes, and you were right. Hmm...We'll have to take care of this promptly..."

"_Yes, of course. The faster Donovan is eliminated, the more secure our plans are. I have no objections to using Ada, Crow. As you put it, she is the best we have. I suggest we utilize her while she still proves herself to be useful._"

Crow sighed. He didn't like it when Wesker used that tone about Ada and himself. She might be just an operative, but to him, she was so much more. She was the wild card in the whole game, that one piece that could tip the balance at just the right time. Her talents were far too valuable to waste.

"Very well then. No objections, so I shall contact her right away. Good-bye."

With nothing further to say, he killed the line and tossed the phone back to his operative, who caught it easily in one hand. He reached inside his tuxedo coat pocket and procured his private line, a sleek cross between a cell phone and a PDA, complete with a small, built in camera. He dialed Ada's number.

The organization's network provided nearly limitless surveillance. With it, one could get a real time video feed via satellite from just about anywhere on the planet. They could track people, actions, information, all with the touch of a button. Right now, however, he needed it to find that single butterfly...

The line connected, and the screen flashed, bringing up the video feed. Ada's visage appeared on his screen. It was obvious he had just woken her, her bangs unusually mussed, and the room around her dark. Her Asian features glowed dimly in the light emanating from her screen.

"_What is it?_" she asked cautiously, her voice tinny through the device's speakers, not sounding happy at all about the call.

Crow smiled. "Good evening, Ada. Or perhaps morning?"

She glanced to the side, probably checking a clock. "_Morning._"

He wished she would hold her PDA further away, so the camera could capture more of her. He was always curious as to what kind of lingerie she wore to bed. But wish as he might, the illumination of her screen only lightened what appeared to be a comforter piled in her lap. The rest of the room was black.

"Then I apologize," Crow said sincerely. "I need you up and ready to move in one hour. There's a pressing matter that needs to be taken care of immediately."

She nodded. "_One hour._" Then she hung up.

Crow switched his PDA off just as the last notes of the second movement finished, the brisk notes matching his confidence. He smiled confidently. With Ada on the job, the problem was already beginning to remedy itself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Ada waited inside her idling car, pulled over on a lonely, empty road. It was just past four in the morning. She yawned, despite her best efforts not to. She didn't appreciate Crow's wake up call, but then again, it was a part of her job. Anywhere, anytime, he could call her for a mission. It probably didn't help that she was halfway around the world in a completely different timezone.

It was a crisp night in the British countryside, hovering just below freezing. Frost was already starting to turn the fields into a crystal blanket. The supple leather of her jacket served to keep most of the weather's bite off her skin, picking up the slack that her stretch lace turtleneck didn't do. Her designer jeans, calf high leather boots, and black leather gloves did the rest.

The hour Crow gave her was just rolling around now. Funny how he'd been wearing a tux, no doubt enjoying the splendor of some performance while she sat waiting in a cold car. It had been faint, but she thought she heard Beethoven through her PDA speakers when he called.

The heat was just beginning to kick in when her PDA chimed on the passenger seat next to her. Ada connected the line, then held it up to see the open channel between them. This time, Crow was a little more relaxed. The bow tie of his tuxedo was undone, and the darker settings around him suggested he was in his limo or back at one of the organization's facilities.

Crow was too damn handsome to run something like the organization. When Ada first heard his name and voice, she expected him to be older. Instead, he was probably the same age as her, early thirties, with a chiseled face and short, dark brown hair with bangs he styled up with gel like a kid. He sounded like a British snob, but proved in the past that he had the guts and brains to back the entire organization.

"_Are you ready?_" he asked.

Ada nodded. "Yes. Now would you care to explain what's going on?"

Her device beeped, registering an incoming packet of data.

"_This is a big one. The organization has a rogue operative, Ada. He could prove to be quite a problem._"

"And you want me to eliminate him." she finished. Great, another hit. She wished she could do things that weren't so petty as murder. "Remember what happened last time you had me do something like this?"

"_All too well, but I have utmost faith in you. I'm sending you all relevant data now. We believe it to be Donovan._"

"Ah, Donny. I never liked him much anyway. Where was he last seen?"

"_He was supposed to be somewhere in central Asia, but that's most unlikely. Check his last known whereabouts: Chicago. Be careful. You know dangerous he is, and you know that he can't be trusted._"

Ada flashed him a confident, charming smile, illuminated by the screen's glow in the dark. "You don't have to worry about me. But I'll need a flight into the country."

Crow smiled back, playing his part in their little flirt. "_Tell me the airport and consider it done, my dear. Anything for you._"

She did so, disconnected the line between them, then shuddered, and not because of the cold. As effective as he was, Ada was a little disturbed by Crow's constant affection. She'd gotten unusually good at reading people in her life, and she didn't like what she saw in Crow's eyes: obsession. Men obsessed with anything were always dangerous.

By the time she reached the airport, the sun still hadn't risen. Nor would it for another hour or so, as it normally did in the mid-winter season. Ada hated winters. Cold, wet, and dark; it was miserable. She wanted warm, moist, and sunny. Somewhere nice and tropical where she could just lounge around all day in a swimsuit.

She parked her car, taking the small bag on the passenger seat with her as she exited the car. Inside it were a few things. Spare clothes, an extra weapon, ammo, her grapple gun, and a few electronic toys and tools a spy would need. It was always best to travel light.

Security didn't give her a problem as she walked onto the tarmac, even though she was armed. It was just an example of how powerful the organization really was. The rules just seemed to vanish when they used their influence. Her plane was actually a small, personal jet, not a tiny little second-hand prop plane. It was something that would run a civilian quite a hefty price especially at such short, VIP notice. But like its influence, the funds of the organization were near limitless.

As soon as she boarded, the jet took off, heading back to America. Ada stretched out on one of the cushy, spacious seats and fished out her PDA. There was plenty of time before she even reached the border, so she decided to do a little homework. She began to sift through the information that Crow had given her to get herself more acquainted with her goal.

Donovan, as most knew him by, was another operative of the organization, not unlike Ada herself. She only had the "pleasure" of meeting him once, when they worked together early in their careers, before the needs of the organization had most of them go under the radar. He was good, she would give him that; deadly with most weapons, but his biggest strength was his affinity for explosives.

Like his surname suggested, he was of Irish descent. The picture supplied by Crow was fairly recent, though he looked a little different from when Ada saw him last. He had short, brown auburn hair, with lighter brown eyes. A little on the short side, but just as built as the typical athlete.

Ada paged through to the next file. His mission record was top notch. Confirmed assassinations, thefts, and counter intelligence were just a few that were supplied from his time in the Irish Army Ranger Wing. For a while, he jumped from location to location, acting as a hired mercenary. He tended to use outright force, but he did it with efficiency.

"Donny, Donny, Donny..." Ada mused softly to herself. "Just what are you up to?"

Operatives were mostly chosen for their skill, not necessarily their loyalty. Ada wouldn't put it past Donovan to simply have defected for the sake of money. She wouldn't even go so far as to call herself loyal to the organization; after all, everyone had their price. The organization just happened to have some of the resources she needed.

But still, going against the organization wasn't something to be taken lightly. If you did it, you better have one hell of a getaway plan and someone to watch your back, not to mention a reason for doing it in the first place.

_So Donovan might know something a little juicy. I guess I'll have to ask him about that when I find him._

The data on her target ended. Ada switched off her PDA and leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Here she was, doing her job like normal, but something still stuck in the back of her mind: the situation with Wesker. Crow said he would look into it, but something told her he didn't.

Albert Wesker was the most dangerous kind of man: a man with a plan. He was using the organization for his own goals, she was sure of it. There was just no evidence to support her theory. Several months ago, the organization itself came under attack. Several members were killed. Ada was sure that it was Wesker's doing, but despite her best efforts, found no real proof that he was connected to the plot. The whole matter resolved itself, and that was that.

But that didn't change the fact that something was just _wrong._ The organization had been ready to take Wesker out of the equation once they had Las Plagas. But then, instead of following through with the original plan and giving Wesker a fake sample of it, she handed him the real one under Crow's orders. Ada assumed it was because of the assassin that was targeting the organization, that they couldn't handle both that and Wesker at the same time.

Ada sighed and rubbed her temples. She was thinking too hard. Right now, the problem at hand was Donovan.

_First fix that, then worry about Wesker. If you still can...This isn't going to be a walk in the park.

* * *

_The next morning, Ada stepped off of her flight and into the Windy City, back in America.

Getting a cab from the airport was no problem. Weeding through big city traffic, as always, was. Ada sighed irritably as her transport crept down the street. Donovan was already ahead of her, how far she didn't know. Every second she spent not finding him, he got further away, and that meant no pay check and no piece of mind. So even something as common as getting stuck in traffic was grating on her nerves.

Donovan owned a small apartment in downtown Chicago. Like Crow said, it was the last place he was known to be at, and that was two weeks ago, just as he was supposed to start an undercover assignment somewhere out of the country.

Ada had her driver drop her off about two blocks from the apartment building. She payed the driver with cash in full, then waited until he departed. The weather in the States was colder, well below freezing as the cold worked its greedy fingers through her clothes. Each breath Ada took was visible, and already the tips of her ears were tingling. Shivering, she shrugged her jacket up higher around her neck and got moving.

The apartment building wasn't anything fancy. Just a simple place inhabited by mostly normal city dwellers, located in a small suburb a ways out of downtown Chicago. Fairly quiet streets, and free of the dreadful rush hour traffic. Donovan probably just used it when he was in the area. That was another thing about the organization; it was very easy to maintain a piece of property, even when you weren't there most of the time.

_Don't know why he didn't press for something a little classier. _Ada's mind briefly wandered to the flat she owned in southern California, then answered her own thoughts. It had been about 5 months since she was even in the state. _If he was never going to use it, then what's the point?_

Ada entered the building, thankful to get out of the freezing air. Donovan's apartment was on the top floor, number 1321. It didn't take long to call the elevator and ride it to the 13th floor.

The outside hallway was empty and quiet. A common, green carpet ran the length of it, the walls and ceiling painted a soft white. Beneath her boots, the floor whispered softly as old boards creaked. Ada counted the doors off as she passed them, rounding the bend in the hall and finding 1321 to be the corner apartment. She tried the door, finding to no surprise that it was locked. After a moment's pause and reaching into her coat to grip the handle of her gun, she knocked. No answer. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a tenant who had already left for work.

The hall was still empty. Most of the building had probably already left, only to be stuck outside in traffic. Quickly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pick gun. Working with lock picks was a good skill to have, but unless you were a master of unlocking, it was tedious. With a pick gun, she could open a door or lock in seconds.

Ada inserted a torsion wrench into the door lock, then stuck the gun's pin in and pulled the handle. The lock clicked, and the torsion wrench turned, releasing it smoothly. The pick gun went back into her pocket, and Ada reached into coat, beneath her left arm, and pulled out her sidearm, a Beretta PX4. It was a small, compact handgun, easy to conceal and perfect for her to manage. She gripped the knob in her gloved hand, twisted it, then pushed the door open, slipping in quietly and shutting it behind her.

No one greeted her intrusion as she waited for a minute in the entryway. With a toss of her head, Ada flicked her bangs back into place and raised her gun. Donovan was dangerous, so not being on her guard at all times would be stupid.

The immediate living room was clear. There was just an ordinary couch in front of a television, a coffee table between them. Behind it, there was a small table near the alcove to the adjacent kitchen, and a small corner desk with a desktop computer. A single, floor to ceiling window let dirty winter sunlight flow into the room, illuminating grainy bits of dust that floated throughout the room from disuse.

She moved on, carefully sweeping each room clear of danger. There was nothing in the bedroom, only a bed and a dresser. There was nothing in the bathroom either. Donovan was scarce. Ada wasn't surprised. It wouldn't be like him to just be waiting there anyway.

Ada holstered her gun back under her arm, surveying the empty shell of an apartment around her. There had to be some clue, something to give a hint where he would go next. All she had to do was find it. She had the time; no one knew she was even there.

She began her search in the bedroom. The dresser was full of men's clothes; a meticulous search between each fold of clothes revealed nothing. The bed was made with a simple, plain set of sheets and comforter. Underneath the mattress, there was a loaded gun, but further inspection revealed it hadn't been used recently. Ada could still smell the oil on it from its last cleaning.

Spies liked to hide things all over the place; she was the same way. If she was going to find clues, they would be scattered about, and each one would probably mean nothing until she found enough of them. In the bathroom, she found a plastic bag in the toilet tank full of authentic passports from various countries. Interesting, but ultimately useless, since if Donovan left the country, he would be sure to take a few with him.

The kitchen and living room were a bust as well, the fridge in the kitchen almost completely empty, save for a few nonperishables. Even all of the cupboards were void of contents. But there was one interesting thing: a paper shredder sat on the desk next to the computer in the living room. Ada peered into the wastebasket beneath it, half expecting to find the same nothing that was all over the apartment, but was surprised to see a splash of white against black plastic. At the bottom lay a small pile of paper strips; the remnants of document.

_Why would he leave that behind if he'd already taken the trash out? Was he in a hurry? Or just lazy?_

Ada grabbed the fistful of shredded paper and stuffed it into a pocket in her jacket. It looked like she was going to have a puzzle to sort through later.

The last thing to check was the computer. There might be an email or two that might stand out. Ada powered it on, then patiently waited for it to warm up.

The screen came to life, prompting her for a username and password. She frowned in annoyance. She half expected something like this, but knew a few tricks to combat it. She began to try said tricks, typing a few prompts into the screen. The computer shifted screens, then-

-a loud click sounded from the keyboard, far too loud to be any normal operation. Ada's eyes widened as it hit her. Donovan's track record...

-_oh shit-_

Ada lunged-

_BOOM._

-diving over the kitchen table and knocking it over just as the deafening explosion rocked the tiny apartment. Shrapnel and debris tore into the table, but by some miracle, it held, the meager furnishing barely saving her life.

Smoke and dust entered her lungs, and Ada coughed the mixture out as she cautiously peeked from behind the ruined table. The corner where the desk once sat was completely gone; now only a rugged, torn hole in the wall remained surrounded by splintered wood. The next apartment complex across the alley was visible through it. The air was hazy, filled with dust and plaster that settled on the shiny black leather of her coat and equally black hair.

Somewhere, a fire alarm was ringing, matching the ringing in Ada's own ears. Somehow in the dive, she was able to cover both ears, thus dampening some of the shockwave and saving most of her hearing. But being that close to an explosion had her rattled all over. Her breaths came out in quick, short jerks, strained from the squeezing pain in her ribcage from the explosion's concussion. Her hip ached from where she landed on it. If she hadn't been covered, the cops would be picking her pieces up and stuffing them into a bag.

Donovan had left a trap. One that big probably meant that he didn't want to be followed, so she had to be on the right track. Only from now on, Ada was going to watch where the hell she stepped. She stumbled out of the apartment, brushing the white powder off of her and holding her side, wanting to be long gone before the emergency crews and onlookers arrived.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

In the safety of one of the organization's facilities, Ada blew across the surface of her cup of tea and took a slow sip. She winced as she leaned back in her chair. A handful of pills had been enough to quell the aches and pains from Donovan's trap, at least for the most part; there were still a few streams of discomfort running deep inside of her. What she needed was a good night's rest.

On the desk in front of her, the computer ran its cycles endlessly. It had already been several hours, and although she was tired, she decided that she wasn't going to sleep until the computer finished reconstructing that shredded document.

A human being could put together something simple like a jigsaw puzzle through trial and error, but it took time. The shredded document was no different, only it was exponentially more complex. So instead of trying to do it manually and taking weeks, possibly months, Ada opted to have a computer do it in a few hours.

Technology was evolving to a point where it was impossible to hide anything. German software engineering at its finest could now put together something that was shredded into countless pieces. It wasn't hard for Ada to get a hold of a computer with the software and technology to do just that. The organization had easy access to just about anything, and as luck would have it, the safe house she now sat in had a computer with the software.

The hard part required of her was scanning each shredded piece of paper into the computer. There had to be about 200 or so tiny strips of paper. Once scanned and cataloged, all that was left to do was sit and wait while the computer finished its algorithms of matching the strips to make the whole document.

The computer chirped, indicating that it had completed its work. Ada leaned forward anxiously as the reconstructed image of the document materialized on the screen, one line at a time. It was far from a perfect photocopy; there were strips missing here and there, and several parts of it were incoherently jumbled together. But it was just enough to make out.

It was a receipt for an airline ticket. Ada quickly focused on the location. It was fuzzy, but she barely made out the initials for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; one way flight. The ticket was made out to a Jonathan Frank, which Ada assumed to be one of Donovan's aliases.

_If he left something like this behind without completely destroying it, then he _was_ in a hurry. He even made it a point to rig his computer, unless that was just one of his personal quirks...He knows someone is after him, or that someone would come eventually._

The question was, why had Donovan fled to Philadelphia of all places? Obviously, he knew the organization was going to track him down. That explained his haste. But it wasn't like he would just randomly pick the city out of the blue. Big cities were nice, but there were better places to disappear in, namely, a backwater foreign country.

Ada copied the reconstructed image to her PDA for further reference, then cleared the computer. A quick phone call to Crow the next morning would guarantee her ticket to the east coast. Right now, however, she needed sleep.

The organization safe house wasn't the most fancy apartment, but it had a decent cot which Ada happily sprawled on. At least it was warm, unlike the outside, where the temperature had dropped considerably. The previous day's jet lag was already affecting her system, and her brush with death put her on an adrenaline crash. She had no problem falling asleep.

* * *

Fresh and fully rested the next day, Ada stepped off of her private jet in Philadelphia to a very unwelcoming harsh wind off of the east coast. It cut right through her clothes, leather jacket and all.

Despite her best efforts, there was nothing to indicate why Donovan had gone to Philadelphia, so she needed to sniff it out as she went along. In the left inner pocket of her jacket was a forged identification of someone from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one of the several she carried with her. People wouldn't reveal private information to a civilian, but they would if it was an agent working on a government case, which is exactly what her cover was.

Ada entered the airport terminal, then went to the first service desk she saw. Working behind it was a busy middle aged man. He smiled politely as Ada approached him.

"Good morning, ma'am, is there something I can help you with?"

Keeping her expression neutral, Ada dug inside her coat and pulled out the identification, waving it briefly in front of his eyes. "Jackie Barns, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I need to speak with the active manager."

The rehearsed skit worked perfectly. The employee stiffened formally at the brisk "federal agent" and reached for the phone. "Yes ma'am, one moment."

Five minutes later, Ada stood in the office of the airport's manager, a portly man smelling faintly of cigarette smoke by the name of Mr. Bricks. His office was small and cluttered with paperwork; it seemed he was a busy man, but then again, Ada supposed managing an airport was busy work. She just hoped his records were good.

"Is there something I can help you with, Agent Barns?" he asked when they introduced each other.

"A man passed through here recently," Ada told him as she fished out her PDA, then called up Donovan's reconstructed receipt. "I found this receipt, and I need to know when he was here."

Bricks hacked a smokers cough in his hand before he held it out to see the data. Ada wrinkled her nose, then reluctantly gave the device to him, glad she was still wearing her gloves. He sat down heavily at his desk, the mountain of scattered papers trembling on the shaky surface.

"Is this part of an investigation?" he asked, almost sounding hopeful as he cleared his computer's screen saver. "Some kind of escaped criminal or something?"

"I can't talk about the details, Mr. Bricks," Ada replied cryptically, her tone hinting irritation, "And I would appreciate it if you didn't ask about them. Now if you would..."

"Sorry, let me see..." he muttered as he typed some of the numbers from the receipt into his computer. "Ah yes, that flight came in a week and a half ago. Jonathan Frank, I remember it now. Top dog, private charter from Chicago."

_Good, he's still making the mistake of traveling privately._

"Did he transfer flights, or did he leave the airport?" Ada asked.

"He left. Our logs show Frank was picked up by a private escort from S."

Ada's eyes narrowed. "S?"

"Yes. The company owns half of this airport, so they usually notify us when someone big is coming. I don't know much, other than he was an important client of theirs. I suppose that also explains the private charter."

Donovan had gone to the same company that Wesker intended to with the Plagas sample. The next best thing to Umbrella. Right there, she decided that it wasn't a coincidence, and she didn't like it. What was going on?

"Very well. Thank you Mr. Bricks, you've helped the Bureau quite nicely." She took her PDA back from him, not bothering to hide the fact she wiped it on her coat as she left.

* * *

Nightfall. Ada carefully crept around the shipping container, keeping an eye out for a stray security guard or worse, dogs. Her charms didn't extend to canines. But for the most part, at least the outer shipping yard was clear of personnel.

S owned a number of properties in the city, but the small cluster of warehouses in the harbor was the only secluded one. If she was going to dig up anything as to why Donovan was involved with S, it was as good a place to start as any. People didn't tend to put their secrets in the busiest places. She waited until the sun went down, then began her infiltration.

As she got closer to the main building that sat along the jetty, she spotted the first guard on the second floor balcony. He looked like a typical rent-a-cop: uniform and a gun. He didn't notice her as she stayed in the shadows, hugging the chain link fence that bordered the yard. Another hundred feet of sneaking, and she made it to the warehouse.

The bulky, rusted sliding door that led to the interior of the warehouse was locked, blocking her direct access. Above her, the guards footsteps creaked on the metal walkway. A door opened, then the footsteps faded. Quietly, Ada reached to the left side of her holster, then pulled free her grapple gun and aimed it at the railing above her.

There was a hiss of compressed gas as the metal claw shot out, the winch beneath the barrel humming as a metal cable trailed behind it. The claw hooked around the railing, and after testing its strength, Ada retracted the cable, pulling herself off the ground. She grabbed the railing with her other hand when she was close enough, then hoisted herself up and over. She shook the claw loose, and the winch purred softly as it winded the cable back up and cocked the claw for another shot.

Knowing she had to move quickly lest the guard returned, Ada crouched low and moved, staying below the long windows that ran along the walkway. It was stupid to go in the door the guard just disappeared to, so Ada moved further along the walkway until it bent around the angle of the building. Once around the bend, she cautiously peeked into one of the windows.

Most of the lights were off in the big empty room, save for a glow from an inner window of one of the interior offices. She spotted the guard she saw earlier, hovering around the entrance of it. Luckily, the walkway ran around the entire warehouse, so Ada repositioned herself until she could peer through the windows into the office.

It was hard to make out the finer details through the weathered, dirty glass, but Ada counted three figures inside. A fourth was sitting on a chair, his back to a support beam, hands cuffed around it. The glass was just clear enough for her to recognize Donovan. It seemed he ran into a little trouble with S...

Ada made her way back along the walkway, then worked her fingers along the frame of one of the windows. She pulled, wincing as rusted hinges squeaked loudly. When it was open wide enough, she slipped through quietly.

The humming of some background generator was enough to muffle her landing on the second floor catwalk behind some crates, only fifty feet from the oblivious guard. She bladed her body against them, Beretta in hand. No silencer, so she'd have to be quick...

The second he looked away, Ada melted off the crate, moving with light steps. The guard heard her footfalls one second too late, and he fumbled to reach for the gun at his belt. She smashed the butt of her gun across his temple, dropping him with a small grunt. He hit the ground, the metal catwalk rattling slightly, and she clocked him once more for good measure, drawing a thin trickle of blood from his temple.

Perching like a hawk over his unconscious body, Ada waited gun in hand for signs of discovery. 30 seconds passed with nothing. She breathed a cool sigh of relief, then crept to the door, able to make out unintelligible voices on the other side. She dug into her pocket, then pulled out a small square explosive charge and stuck it on the door. It was a small bit of plastic explosive, shaped to direct its blast, and it would blow the simple wooden door right off its hinges.

Ada took a few steps back and pressed her back to the wall, raising the sexy pen-sized detonator, then depressed it.

_BOOM._

An explosion, not unlike the one she experienced in Donovan's apartment, turned the door into a mass of splinters, ripping it clean from its hinges. She lunged into the smoke, gun raised, and locked onto the first figure she saw.

_BAM BAM BAMBAM._

Four shots, and three bodies hit the floor. Ada cleared the room one last time for something she might have missed earlier, but there was no one else. Just Donovan, reeling from the blast. He blinked hazily, his features turning to a mixture of annoyance and defeat when he saw her. Other than a cough from the smoke and a bruised eye, he was unharmed.

"Ah, crap," he groaned. "I figured they would send you."

Ada tsked, shaking her head mockingly. "Donny, Donny, Donny...Someone's been a bad boy."

He grit his teeth and rolled his eyes. She had to give him credit. Cuffed to a chair before an assassin, and he still barely batted an eye. "Whatever, Wong. I know you're not here to rescue me, so just get it over with."

Ada cocked her head in thought, casual rubbing her thumb along the grip of her gun. Hit him right between the eyes, and be out in less than a minute, or...

_He knows something._

"Not just yet, dear," she said, smiling. She slowly strutted forward, being sure to add that extra wag in her hips, then crossed her arms. "I'm a little curious as to why you went through all this trouble. You know how powerful the organization is..."

"'Curious'." Donovan barked out a laugh as she circled the beam he was tethered to. "It's the curious ones that end up in the most trouble, _sweetheart_. Just like me. Nothing I say is going to change your mind."

"Aww, come on, don't be like that," she said, faking a hurt tone. It was time to kick it up a notch. Ada swung her leg over, then plunked herself down on his lap, her arms draped around his shoulder, staring a foot away fromm his surprised face. "What am I going to have to do to unzip your lips?"

Donovan bristled, pulling away from her. Ada smiled sweetly, delighted that her teasing was having such an effect on him. She wasn't going to do much more than flirt, but he didn't know that. So let him think that more was going to come. It seemed to work.

"Alright. I don't expect you to believe me, since you are their prized pet. Hell, for that matter, you might already know." Ada frowned at the remark, but nothing could prepare her for what he said next. "What if I told you the entire organization was murdered, all save for two members who planned the whole thing?"

Ada's mouth actually dropped open in surprise. "What?"

This time, it was Donovan's turn to grin. "You heard me. And guess who the two members are?" He didn't have to say it, Ada already knew it in her head. "Crow and Wesker."

"You're lying," she said after a heartbeat. He _had _to be. There was no way what he said even made sense. It was crazy...so crazy that it couldn't be made up.

"Wish I was, but they now control everything the organization once used to. All the contacts, the money, the information..."

Her perch on Donovan's warm lap no longer made her spine buzz with that pleasant feeling whenever she worked her charm. Instead, it only felt like she was sitting uncomfortably on a man's legs. Her arms still lightly draped across his shoulders, she looked past him, trying to piece it all together.

_Those murders back then, with that assassin..was that what was happening? Was the organization behind that? But if Crow was in on it, then why did he use me to draw her out, let alone his own safety? There's something else...  
_

"How does S fall into this?" she asked tersely. "Why did they take you hostage?"

"Wesker was using S as a base to research the Plagas sample, and Crow was funding him," Donovan replied. "When I found out, first thing I did was leak it to S. I don't know what happened after that. They've had me here for the past week. They might have been under assumption they were working with the organization."

Wesker and Crow...if Donovan was telling the truth, which was a low probability, then this was very bad. It would mean that Crow never intended to eliminate Wesker after she acquired the parasite from Spain, that they had been planning the whole thing the entire time! Now, if he was right, Wesker was already at S with the Plagas. Could the two of them really have killed off the rest of the organization? Of course they could have, but what was their goal? Why keep people like her and Donovan alive when they had infinite possibilities to take them out?

Donovan still stared back at her. Ada tried to detect some form a lie in him, but came up with nothing. He was calm, resolved even though he didn't know if she would buy his story.

A noise shifted Ada's attention: sirens. Someone heard the explosion and gunshots and called the cops. She shifted her arms, now gripping Donovan tightly by the shoulders, staring back hard.

"Why the hell should I believe you?" she demanded. "What proof do you have?"

He sighed dramatically. "Therein lies the problem, Wong. I don't have any proof with me. And by the sound of it, you don't have time to wait while I get it. If you want it, I'm sure you'll know where to look."

_Shit!_

If he _was _lying, this was working out perfectly for Donovan. The cops would pick him up, and she would lose a chance to take him out. She should have got up, taken a step back and blew his head off, but she didn't. Instead, she jumped off his lap and bolted for the door.

"Don't you think you could've uncuffed me?" he yelled after her.

Going out the front door was a bad idea, but Ada already spotted an alternative exit, a small side door on the ground floor. She vaulted the catwalk railing, landing on a container, then hopped to the floor. She burst through the door and into the cold winter night.

"_Hey you, freeze!_"

She spun, seeing the cop near the corner of the building. Ada did exactly the opposite and took off running towards the outer perimeter of the grounds. The chain link fence was high, but lacked any barbed or razor wire at the top. She was already halfway up it before the cop, now joined by a partner, was even close to her. By the time she cleared the fence and dropped to the ground, they were halfway to it.

"_Stop, or we'll open fire!_"

Ada continued to book it. Two gunshots rang out, clipping the side of the adjacent building. She quickly changed directions, trying to stay out of their sights. Before they could shoot again, she had already melted into the shadows, out of sight.

Her boots sounded nosily on the pavement as she hugged the shadows of the harbor warehouses, breath puffing every time she exhaled. The sound of the cops had disappeared behind her, now replaced by the gentle sound of the nightly tide. Her car was parked in an abandoned lot nearby, and the cops hadn't even gotten a good look at her; a clean getaway.

_Wesker and Crow...what the hell is going on?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_Taptaptap. Taptaptap. Taptaptap._

Ada rhythmically drummed her fingers on the steering wheel of her rented Lincoln, leather on leather padding softly. Three taps in three groups, a pause, then three more groups. The tiny sounds worked gently to reconstruct the order in her thoughts in the event that her known world had indeed just been turned upside down.

_Crow and Wesker...Crow and Wesker..._

_Taptaptap. Taptaptap. Taptaptap._

She gently chewed her lower lip, then dubiously eyed her PDA sitting on the dashboard next to the gear shift. She didn't want to call Crow about her assignment, but at the same time, she had to report in. Thus was her paradox.

_Stop torturing yourself. Report in, then deal with the fallout. Play dumb, and they won't suspect a thing._

Ada snatched her PDA up, then hit Crow's speed dial. The harmonic dial tunes cascaded in a single second, then turned into a ring. The line connected after one.

"_So, Miss Wong, I take it your mission was a success?_" asked Crow, his handsome, British features filling her PDA's LCD screen.

Ada nodded without hesitation. "Yes. Donovan's been eliminated."

"_I knew I could count on you_," Crow said, sounding very sincere. "_Were there any problems?_"

"No. I tracked him to Philadelphia." She raised an eyebrow smugly, realizing she had been sounding very monotonous. "He didn't make it very far after that."

"_Sounds exciting._" Crow paused for only half a second, just long enough for Ada to notice. "_Did Donovan say anything as to why he defected? What was he doing?_"

"No. I put a round into his head before he could start making excuses. As far as I can tell, he was just trying to put distance between himself and us."

"_Efficient as always, my dear,_" Crow said with a wide grin. "_I'll transfer a nice sum into your account for this matter. Please do buy yourself something nice. If you ever need a second opinion on a dress or jewelry, feel to give me a call._"

Ada giggled like a schoolgirl. "Oh Crow, you spoil me far too much. But I'll keep that in mind..." She winked teasingly, then disconnected, immediately dropping the act and running a hand hard over her face. It looked like he bought it after all.

For the first time, she reflected on what she just said. There had been times she withheld information from her employers, but this was the first time it was a necessity for her survival. What was going to happen because of this? The controlled order that was her life was quickly becoming chaos, and all because of an ordinary assignment.

* * *

The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain was one of the best in the world, and the Ritz Philadelphia was no exception. Nestled safely in the heart of the city, the Roman styled building glowed with a positive energy of wealth and luxury.

Ada stepped into the lobby, gently rubbing the bridge of her nose, the smell of leather from her gloves familiar and soothing. Without bothering to admire or even appreciate the extravagant Pantheon-style architecture, she headed straight for the check-in desk.

"I'd like the penthouse, if you don't mind," she said tiredly to the female receptionist, without giving her so much as eye contact.

"Ma'am," she began patiently, "The penthouse suite requires a reservation. I'd be happy to put your name down, or if you would like, find an available guest room for the evening."

Ada fished out her wallet, opened it, then simply dropped her platinum credit card on the marble counter top. "It's good for what it's worth, and I suggest you run it and just give me the suite like I asked," she said, a drop of venom in her words.

She didn't care about coming off cross. The alias registered to the card was a notable bitch anyway, and for once, she didn't have to act the part. With a frown, the receptionist left to process the card, leaving Ada alone with her thoughts amidst classical music playing from the nearby ballroom that echoed hollowly off of the high rotunda above.

It didn't take the receptionist long to return with a fake smile plastered on her face. Funny how some people easily people changed when confronted with authority. "I'm very sorry about that, Miss Xiang. The penthouse is all ready for you. Enjoy your stay."

She handed Ada her key, who took it without deciding to respond with a witty remark. The receptionist was nothing to her, a mere person to pass on the way to something better. Right now, that something better was her room. All Ada wanted to do was get there and work on sorting out the things inside her head.

The penthouse had a private elevator, which required her key to activate. It was a short ride up to the cozy, isolated 31st floor. In fact, the suite _was _the 31st floor. She would be entirely alone, and right now, that's exactly what she wanted.

Within minutes, she was running hot water in one of the two bathrooms the luxurious suite had to offer. A good long soak was just what she needed to help clear her head. She unbuckled her holster, setting it within reach of the bathtub, then quickly stripped off her crimson turtleneck, the thin shirt beneath it, and her jeans. After she flicked her panties away with her foot, she stepped into the hot, soothing water, lowering herself into it with a contended sigh.

The time ticked by slowly as Ada let herself slip away from the world. It was something she didn't do nearly enough, always being on the move, always being on guard. It felt nice to just...disappear from real life once in a while. Nothing mattered. There was just relaxed comfort, her body surrounded in heat, one leg dangling out of the tub as her big toe played along the edges of the cool tiled floor.

With another sigh, Ada put a washcloth over her eyes, not wanting to think about what Donovan had said. Like the water around her, the gravity of his words sunk in deep. If Crow and Wesker were planning something, it couldn't be good, but there was no way for her to prove that they had taken over.

_This job is complicated enough...Goddamn you Donny, why did you have to say that? Better yet, why the hell didn't I just shoot you on sight?_

Without even realizing it, she began to nod off, then was jarred back by a dull ache in her shoulder. Ada grunted, then sunk lower into the bathtub, letting the heat work into it. Her old injury was acting up, as it usually did when the weather got cold and the muscles tightened. And every time it did, it drew her thoughts back to Raccoon City...

...back to Leon.

A sore shoulder, a scattering of memories, and 7 years of loneliness was all she really had of him. Here she sat, complaining silently about a complex life when he was probably the only person who could have given her a normal life. The crossroads for that life had been Raccoon City, and she chose the wrong path, but in the end, tried to turn back. For her trouble, she got a bullet in the shoulder and a couple hundred foot drop into the sewers, but not death.

_Fitting...if only I didn't love my job so damn much._

Even when they met years later, nothing had changed. She stuck a gun to his head to grab the Plagas sample, almost blew him up with the island, then actually considered executing him in cold blood. Of course, she managed to stop herself at the last second, but why had she waited so long? Why had she lifted the gun, and aimed for his heart?

Maybe it was because she was too proud. She wanted him, even dreamed of falling asleep in his arms sometimes, but something inside her couldn't let herself submit to a petty thing like love. Ada Wong, the woman in red, the exotic tease, didn't want to be tethered down when an exciting life of danger and adventure lay within her grasp.

The truth was, she didn't know what she wanted. She was a spy, and she loved her enemy. At the same time, she loved her own life just as much. There was something that was deadlocking either process, and she didn't know what to do to release it.

* * *

The doorbell rang. Her late dinner had arrived, a simple order-in from a local Chinese place. The hotel had more than enough to cater to her needs, but right now, Ada wanted something a little unhealthy and greasy. She had slipped back into her jeans and shirt. In her haste to get to the bath, she neglected to up the suite's heat, so she also had her boots back on to protect against the freezing cold floor.

On the way to the door, she grabbed her wallet from her coat, fingering through bills. She grabbed the knob and was about to open it when she dropped the leather trifold. Sighing in annoyance, she stooped to collect it, then-

_CRACK CRACK CRACK_

-three holes blasted through the wooden door, inches above her back, spraying her with a shower of painted splinters. Ada jerked, stumbling to the side and recognizing the sound immediately just as the door burst open on its hinges. Instinct took control, and she threw herself against it just as the arm with the gun appeared, a suppressor screwed into the barrel.

The unsuspecting assailant bounced against the door frame as the door closed on him. He shoved it back, but not before Ada grabbed his arm and pulled.

_TICK TICK_

The gun went off again, more bullets silently spitting into the room with tiny pops. The loud clicking she heard was from the gun's slide as it ejected spent casings. One round popped through the couch with a spray of fluff, another splintering the floor. They wrestled for control, and somewhere in the mess, someone tripped, sending them both to the ground.

The gun discharged involuntarily again, rounds digging into the ceiling as they grappled on the floor in a tangled mass of limbs, then clicked dry after its last shot left the magazine. Ada drove her elbow into the man's chest, then into his arm, forcing him to drop it before he could use it as a bludgeon. But then the assailant twisted her around, locking his arm around her neck and squeezing. She coughed, then flexed her gut hard, summoning enough strength to drive her knee up to his face. He let go.

Even as they both scrambled to their feet, they started trading blows. Ada got in a quick one-two, then felt the elbow crack her across the face, followed shortly by a clumsy, yet vicious boot to the chest. She fell back on the wood paneled floor of the penthouse suite, skidding on its smoothness until she hit the carpeting, then got to her feet, pushing the pain aside to an unneeded part of her mind.

Her male attacker was about the same height and age as her, with sandy brown hair and a matching goatee. He was dressed in street clothes; jeans, a light black windbreaker with a black hoodie beneath it. With a light shake, he shook his shoulders loose, his eyes cold and indifferent, then methodically started toward her, a machine with a solitary mission.

Ada's expression was no different. Human emotion in such a situation was beyond useless. What was etched across her features was survival, plain and simple. She had stupidly left her gun in the bathroom, and she wasn't going to take her eyes off him for one damn second. Kill him before he killed her. All the thinking went away, and all that was left was pain, strength, and strategy.

They each took three strides, then met, clashing like sparks from hot steel. The assailant struck first, punching and kicking. Ada warded the blows, then countered with her own combo. He blocked, but one quick punch struck him across the nose. She struck again, kicking out at the back of his leg and dropping him to one knee, then punched across his temple. He fell to the ground hard, but rolled to his feet, as if nothing had happened.

Hand to hand combat was nothing like the movies. People saw the over glorified martial arts and assumed that was how it worked. In reality, a fight lasted a minute or two, and both sides ended up bleeding and bruised, so jacked up on natural highs they barely felt anything.

Another exchange between them, and already Ada's wrists hurt from his powerful strikes. A fist hit her in the ribs, robbing her of breath and stunning her just long enough for him to elbow her in the side of the head. She reeled, pain and stars in her eyes as the man lunged forward, leg outstretched. Ada managed to catch it in her hands and absorb some of the blow, then reached in and punched, finally pushing him back. He fell over the glass table that sat between the velor couch and 40 inch plasma TV, smashing it into thousands of glittering fragments. Once again, he scrambled to his feet and attacked, shards of glass falling from his clothes.

A punch caught her dead in the face, letting loose a small trickle of blood. He kicked, knocking her to the ground, then brought his heel down, intent on smashing her skull in. Ada rolled just as his foot smashed the ground, the sound of it similar to a safe crashing on a hard floor next to her head. She kicked back, hooking her leg between his and setting him off balance then to the floor with a crash.

Both of them spun to their feet, but just as Ada moved in on his crouching form, he lunged, the glint of a knife just visible in the light. It was a small blade, hardly half the size of a butter knife, but it was more than enough. She caught his arm just in time, quickly locking and controlling it each time he twisted his arm to cut her, then snuck in a quick jab to set him off, letting loose a tream of red from his nose.

Ada backed up, moving to the room that acted like a little office, not taking her eyes off the stoic assassin and his blade. Her gun was now forever beyond her reach. He now stood between her and where she had left it; there had been no time to go for it in the fray.

He marched after her, then struck again when he was close enough. The knife flickered between them, striking like a metal snake. Ada parried the blade away, keeping her vital wrists turned away from it, then caught his arm again, locking it into twist.

No matter how hard she wrenched at his arm, he wouldn't drop the knife, despite his pained grunts. He thrust his fist into her side; Ada gasped, but kept her grip. Another blow, and this time, his arm slipped away, the blade slicing through her forearm as he retracted it. All she felt was the cold edge. No pain. Then, wetness as she stumbled back, pressing against the room's desk.

He stabbed, and Ada twisted, catching his arm for yet another hold, but this time, the assassin punched for her face. The blow was only a glance across her jaw, but still sent a wave of dull pain through her senses. Ada cocked her arm and drove her elbow in response, which he haphazardly blocked with his hand. She jerked his arm, but he pulled back, kicking her legs out from under her and sending her flying to the ground with a hard crash. He dove at her, but she kicked, once in the gut, then again in the chest, knocking him backwards in a stumble.

She kicked to her feet, and then paused to glare and pant at him. The assailant's nose bleed had intensified, now trickling down to the corner of his mouth. A small abrasion on his cheek speckled more crimson. Ada's lip was torn, gushing blood down her chin, and her left eye was beginning to swell. A similar, blood spattered abrasion sat on her temple. Both of them were drenched in sweat, and too hyped up on adrenaline to care about anything else.

The assailant lunged, swiping his knife at her throat. Ada leaned back to avoid it, then batted his arm away with her own. She suddenly ducked under his arm as she gripped it, twisting it with her, then kicked at his shin. The man fell, and she shoved him down, driving his face into the edge of the desk. There was a wet crack as skull met wood, and as part of a jaw broke and a tooth dislodged.

The assailant swiped drunkenly with the knife, which Ada easily avoided. He got to his feet only to meet with Ada's fist and knee. He swiped again. Ada caught his arm, then kicked his knee, snapping it sideways with another crack as the bone broke. She viciously pulled his arm down over her shoulder, a loud snap resounding in her ear as it hyperextended, then drove her elbow into his face.

He fell back with a twisted moan, eyes unfocused, and then slipped into unconsciousness with a hazy sigh. Panting hard, Ada wiped her lip, smearing crimson across the back of her hand, then dropped to his side and began feeling his pockets, but not before kicking the fallen knife away from his hand. No wallet, no other weapons. He might have come off as a drifter, but she knew that there was no way a vagrant could sneak into a hotel with a high-class silenced weapon and those kinds of moves. Whoever he was, he was sent to kill her.

Ada rose to her feet, swooning slightly, almost toppling over as her head pounded. She needed to get out of there, asap. It took her only a second to grab her necessities, coat, PDA, and gun, then was out the door and in the elevator. On the way, she hastily dabbed at her face with a small towel, trying to blot away the visible streams of blood. There was no way she was going to get it all; right now, she looked like a battered housewife on the receiving end of a domestic dispute. She tied the now streaked towel around her wrist to try and stem the bleeding, then stepped out of the elevator.

_Was this Wesker?_ She thought to herself as she moved through the lobby, trying to keep her head cast down, but at the same time, keeping lookout for another ambush. _Or was it Crow? What if all his fawning was only to throw me off guard? Hell, what if it's just like Donny said, and it's the both of them? Only they could figure out my location...and they might have guessed Donny might let something slip about them, so they sent an agent to kill me._

Once inside her pitch black Lincoln MKZ, Ada peeled out of her parking spot, heading deeper into city traffic. After driving aimlessly for twenty minutes, she ascertained that there was no one following her and relaxed a hair's breadth. She didn't dare stop driving, though. Not until was she out of the city and well off the grid was she going to stop moving.

But there was already one problem her instincts so kindly reminded her of. Ada prided herself on being thorough, and that was exactly what she needed to do. First of all, assume the worst: this attack _was _Crow and Wesker's plan. That assassin was supposed to report in. If he didn't, they would assume she had figured it out, and would come after her with the force of hell itself.

So even though calling the very person who could be trying to kill her was terrifying, Ada gritted her teeth and punched Crow's number. She awkwardly held her PDA up while steering, so he could get the full effect of her appearance. His image appeared, his features going from relaxed to alarmed in a heartbeat.

"_Ada!_"

"I was just attacked," she interjected wearily. It wasn't hard, acting the part of being beaten. In fact, she wasn't acting at all. "In my goddamn hotel room."

"_Government agents, police?_"

"No, some guy dressed as a civvie. No ID, just a weapon."

Crow brought his knuckle to his mouth, gently chewing at it as he thought. He seem perplexed, as far as Ada could tell as she drove. "_You're okay, though?_"

"Yeah, just fine. A little beat up, but I'll live."

"_You need to get out of there, immediately,_" Crow said briskly. "_Do you have cash?_" Ada nodded. "_Good. Arrange your own means of departure. I don't want to take a risk of a remote chance of a leak in our security._"

Ada paused. "Are you thinking-"

"_I can't say for certain, but I think you'll agree with me when I say that I have a bad feeling about this,_" Crow cut her off before she could bring up the possibility of Wesker being that leak.

"Yeah, no arguments there."

"_Lie low for a few days. I will contact you._"

"Got it."

He disconnected very businesslike, and Ada sighed. One problem solved. If Crow was pulling off some act, at least he thought she was clueless, and might try to organize a better plan, which gave her some time. Now all she needed to do was find some way to confirm her own theories. But how exactly was she supposed to do that? Call Crow and Wesker up and politely ask them if they were trying to kill her?

_'...If you want it, I'm sure you'll know where to look...'_

Donovan's words came back to her, and right away, she saw it. It couldn't have been more obvious. To find whether something was truth or a lie, you had to go back to the source. At first, she thought that was Donovan, but he was just a sign to point her along the way. In fact, she already knew who she needed to see.

His name was Richard Hayes, and he was the CEO of S Corporation.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

S was a global corporation, so logic would dictate that their facilities were spread across the planet. Although they were based in the United States, many of their buildings sprung up in just about every major country about a decade after the company surfaced It was Umbrella all over again. How long would it take everyone to notice the elephant in the living room this time?

Richard Hayes wasn't very hard to find, unlike Donovan. It was just a matter of doing a simple web search, and he popped up after a few links. He was practically a celebrity, so for him, hiding was virtually impossible.

It was on the global headlines all over the Internet; he was attending a gathering in Prague to discuss a business merger with the local companies, and there would be a social dinner to celebrate. S was to be the great liberator of health care in that nation, which had been suffering as of late. A lot of big names were on the list, too.

Ada still had a few days before Crow would check in on her, and the gathering was well before that. If she was going to do some snooping undetected, the time was now. It was almost too perfect a chance to pass up anyways. She loved parties, and she loved traveling, especially anywhere within Europe.

So she booked a flight, coach class, and left that night for the Czech Republic. Instead of going straight there, she landed in Brno, another major city in the southeastern part of the nation, then took a train the rest of the way. Whatever precaution she could take to throw off potential trailers, she did; a new alias, and the cheap, commercial flight and train ride into the city.

It was early evening when she arrived in the bustling hub of the European nation's capital, the S gathering only hours away. Beforehand, she had looked up the location of the party, and through her usual sources, was able to obtain some rough blueprints for the place. Nothing outrageously fancy, just a rented ballroom/dining room deep in the city known as the City of 100 Spires. The tourist sights were supposed to be superb...

Unfortunately, due to her current situation, she had to forgo her usual indulgence of hotel luxury. She only had cash, and it would only draw attention to herself. So in a cheap motel, Ada prepared for her infiltration. A dinner party wasn't something she could sneak around in like the warehouse in Philadelphia. There were too many innocent people, not enough places to hide, and with an organization like S, there was bound to be some hefty security. So she needed to hide in plain sight, among the guests.

Ada opened her small suitcase, then picked up one of the objects inside. A stream of crimson flowed down like water as her selected dress unfolded. It was a long, slender evening dress, slit up the side for leg mobility. Aside from it being made of silk, it was void of any other flair; just its deep red color. She had packed it very carefully, and there wasn't a single wrinkle in the fabric, almost like it was one, continuous cascade of red.

She laid it out carefully on the bed to let any minuscule creases settle, then continued to check the contents of her bag. In a small, plated part of the suitcase was her Beretta and a thin, silver switchblade, along with a thigh holster for both of them. She would have preferred to bring her grapple gun, but sneaking in one weapon was hard enough. So this time, she would forgo that luxury of mobility.

_Hubris sure is a funny thing_, Ada mused to herself as she stripped off her street clothes. It was a little narcissistic of her, she would openly admit it. Narcissistic and extremely arrogant. This time, her attire went with the surroundings, but more often than not, she wore similar fashion in not so fitting places. Raccoon City, the Spanish wilderness...both in shades of deadly, seductive red. It was like something out a movie, a ridiculous one at that. _Now where's my hot secret agent date?_

Once the smooth, form fitting silk dress was fastened by its thin straps around her neck, Ada moved to the bathroom for her makeup. It didn't take much for her features to be enhanced; just a quick brush of eyeliner and mascara to give her that piercing gaze that drove the men wild. But the little brawl with the assassin slipped her mind, and when she looked back into the bathroom mirror after her usual applications, Ada realized that the abrasion on her high cheek bone was still glaringly obvious, so out came the foundation. She hated it; it made her skin look fake and powdery

Once her face was restored to an even color, she pulled out a tube of lipstick, then painted her lips a light, glossy pink, hinted with just a touch of purple. After that, it was just a spritz of hairspray and a her diamond studded earrings.

Her heels were Pollini, glossy jet black with real gold buckles. She put one foot on the motel bed to buckle it, her ankle steady as a rock while balanced on the mattress. It was another one of her innate talents: the ability to maintain perfect speed and agility in the most uncomfortable footwear.

Once her talons were comfortably fastened, she brushed away the fabric of her dress from her legs, and attached the slim nylon holster to her upper left thigh. She preferred it to be on her right, where it was easy to draw from, but the slit would make it plainly visible. Instead, now it would be tucked under the red folds of silk, a few more seconds away. If the night went as planned, she wouldn't need to quickly draw a weapon.

Her PDA, the knife, and her Beretta, silencer screwed into the barrel went into the holster the latter of which raising goosebumps along her thigh as the cold, oiled metal touched it. As long as she sat with her legs crossed, her weapons were easily hidden. Most people would probably be focused on her exposed leg, the low-cut halter top, or her creamy, chiseled bare back to notice a funny crinkle beneath her dress.

Lastly, there was still the matter of the long red line from the knife wound. Once again, a little token from the unnamed assassin. Even a dab of concealer didn't fully blot out the still-healing wound. Rarely did Ada ever wear gloves with a dress, since they hampered gun handling very slightly, but to preserve her cover, she slipped on a pair of elbow length gloves, the same material and color as her dress.

Just as she finished dressing, it was already time to go. It was winter night, and the sun had set early. The red wrap she draped over her shoulders was nowhere near enough to keep the freezing winter bite off her skin, but it would do until she got in a cab and into the building.

Getting a cab as a beautiful woman was very easy, as Ada learned through years of experience. Sooner, rather than later, she was out of the cold and speeding to her destination. It would have been much more dramatic to arrive in a limousine, but once again, her massive retirement fund was currently off limits until she could safely use it. So a cab it was for the evening.

She reached her destination after a short ride, despite traffic. Ada exited her transport, once again at the mercy of the below freezing temperature. The front of the building where the party was being held was a crowded mass of people, all decked out in their finest outfits. It spread down both sides of the walk, the busy street acting like a dam against flowing water.

The downtown buildings were densely pressed together, so close that she could have infiltrated from over the adjacent rooftops. But having to sneak down the entire building to get to the party would have been more trouble than it was worth. Luckily, she possessed other skills that made the task of gaining entry a snap.

Entrance to the party was by ticket, expensive ones at that. The cheaper seats for the dinner ran for a few hundred dollars apiece. Better ones came in at around a few thousand. All in all, a pretty good deal, provided you had the cash for such an event.

The first straggling couple she saw, an older man and his date, was standing just off to the side of a clump of people. Ada redirected herself, walking briskly, then at the last minute leaned over, deliberately bumping into the side of the man. He didn't feel her hand dip into the pocket of his coat, then withdraw with his ticket.

_First try!_

He curtly said something to her in a foreign language, one that Ada didn't know offhand. Probably a native Czech. Boy, was he going to be upset when he found out that he wasn't getting in.

"Very sorry," she said simply with a smile, then kept moving.

It may have been that the party was ticket entry only, but still, plenty of people had lined up to try and get in anyway. It wasn't much different than a high end club or lounge. With her stolen entry, Ada easily weaved and pushed through the crowd until she reached the entrance, blocked off by a velvet rope and half a dozen meaty bouncers in tuxes. One began to ward her off, but she stuck the stub of paper in his face between her index and middle finger.

"If you'll excuse me," she said politely enough. "It's rather chilly out here."

The bouncer didn't comment on her smug choice of words. He had probably been hearing it for a few hours from numerous people, some nice, others not. The velvet barrier before her was removed, leaving her free to enter the party without a single problem.

Inside the warm, lush entry hall, she handed her wrap to a waiting attendant, then took in her surroundings. The ballroom was Victorian-style, with a high ceiling and sparkling, polished tile floor. Several large glimmering chandeliers hung from the ceiling, casting a warm, golden light over the guests. At one end, a grand staircase sank down to the floor from the second level, branching off in opposite directions near the top. On the ground floor, a small orchestra strummed away a soft, gentle tune on their violins and cellos.

The enormous interior was packed with couples of all sorts, all talking and visiting. They ranged from the very young, handsome men with equally young dates that wore the newest, sometimes questionable trends of fashion, to the older, more distinguished men and women with more traditional dresses and loads upon loads of jewelry.

A waiter passed by, dressed smartly, carrying a tray of champagne. Ada gladly helped herself to a glass of the sparkling drink, then began to sift through the crowd, exchanging polite hellos to those that passed her. Hayes wouldn't be late to his own party. He would be there as soon as he could, for publicity reasons.

_He would be around the biggest cluster of people...there..._

She spotted him easily, at the foot of the enormous grand staircase surrounded by a small crowd of people, as well as several reporters with flashing cameras who Ada was very careful to stay behind. Hayes was a middle-aged man, built big and solid like a former football player. He had a good face for the press, handsome, with short, wavy brown hair that was slicked to the side like the professional he was.

The man and woman standing next to him, Ada guessed from looking at previous photos, was the Czech Republic Prime Minister and his wife. He was just one of many big people that would be clamoring for Hayes' attention, and she needed to get him alone and secluded. Fat chance of that happening in a situation like this. Her options were limited, and her time frame very short.

Ada thoughtfully sipped at her champagne, then moved closer to the outer perimeter of people. As she contemplated her next move, whether it be to pull him into a closet or to order the roast duck at the dinner, a small cluster of people began to merge with the crowd, but was promptly held back by staff. It consisted of several women and men, both dressed for the occasion. Ada snuck closer and listened in.

"-an important call," a woman was saying. "Mr. Hayes has to take it, if not now, then soon, okay?"

"Okay," one of the men said exasperatedly, "I'll tell him, but he has a lot of people to talk to tonight. Is there a reason they couldn't be here in person?"

"Not everyone can afford to go a black tie event," the woman said with a hint of a glare in her eyes. "The only reason I'm here is because he paid for my ticket. The least I can do is my job while I'm here. They're on hold in his room, the sooner, the better."

The woman, maybe one of Hayes' aids, stalked off, passing Ada without even glancing. She took a drink from her glass again. S was a never-sleeping company, so it was feasible that someone might need to pull Hayes away from his own party for a few minutes to discuss business. The powers that be once again left her a way to do her job.

On her way to the grand staircase, Ada drained the rest of her glass, then dropped it on one of the many tables dotting the ballroom for just such a thing. Since the floor was so crowded, people had perched along the steps, chatting casually. A single, beefy man stood at the top, lazily watching over it. Ada caught his eye and smiled, which he returned, then resumed his scanning. All she had to do was pretend she was interested in watching the crowd, then slowly inch out of his field of vision. Then when she was sure he couldn't see her, she quietly moved down the landing, gone in a single whisper of scarlet.

Once around the corner, Ada pressed her back to the wall and looked the way she came. The guard hadn't noticed or heard her. She moved on, pressing deeper into the building, the sound of the orchestra slowly fading as she put distance between it. Most of the security staff was somewhere in the party it seemed, as the only one she encountered roaming the hall was easily avoided by ducking into a cleaning closet.

Finding the correct room was easy enough. A brass plaque inserted on a set of doors read 'reserved for Hayes'. It wasn't even locked. So much for the infiltration being hard...

The room was a small office, and judging from a casual suit hanging from a file cabinet, also acted as Hayes' dressing room. Sure enough, just as she heard the woman say, on the deeply polished desk sat a phone, one red light blinking, indicating a call on hold status. Aside from the desk, there was a wet bar, a pair of leather conference seats besides a coffee table, and a large window that probably overlooked the city. The blinds were drawn, saving Ada that trouble.

Ada crossed the room, then hopped up on the desktop, crossing her long legs, then drew her weapon, letting it rest in her lap. In a few minutes, sooner than she originally expected, she heard footsteps. The door opened, and Richard Hayes entered.

"Hello Mr. Hayes," she purred, then raised her silenced weapon in his direction. "I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time?" Hayes paused, stopping cold as he saw the red beauty posing on his desk, armed and very much dangerous. Ada wagged her gun. "Shut the door." He did as she asked, then spread his arms, showing that he was unarmed.

"You must be one of their assassins," he said neutrally. If he was scared or nervous, he didn't show it. On the contrary, he looked as he did in the paparazzi photos: very calm and determined. "I never would have thought you'd try to kill me at a public event."

Ada uncrossed her legs and slid off the desk, then motioned with the muzzle of her gun to the two leather chairs. "Sit down, hands on the armrests."

Hayes moved to one of the chairs. "Is there a reason you're being so delicate, Miss...?"

"Wong," she replied crisply as he sat down, then moved to stand before him, keeping the gun at her hip, pointed at his chest. "Here's how it's going to work, Mr. Hayes. You're going to answer my questions. If you don't, you will get to find out just how _delicate _I can be." Her voice hadn't lost its purr, but acquired a very deep, threatening implication.

"Fair enough, Miss Wong," he said coolly, then leaned back, grinning slightly. "Forgive the pun, but shoot."

Ada gave him a quip look, but didn't lower her gun. "I'm sure you know who I am and who I represent. So I will be very straightforward..."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Did Albert Wesker approach you with the parasite known as Las Plagas?" Ada wished she could have phrased the question a little more cryptically and given herself a little room to fall. If he answered no, and was truthful about it, she will have revealed a very large secret to the general bioweapon community. Not to mention she would look like a total idiot in the process by going through all this trouble.

_And just what would Crow do if he found out?_

Richard Hayes grinned, then crossed his legs casually, settling deeper into the chair. "Why yes, yes he did. And I'm guessing that by your question, Miss Wong, despite what you told me, you are not here to represent your organization..."

Ada blinked. So that was it then. Everything Donovan had told her was pretty much confirmed with that single sentence. Crow never meant to take the parasite from Wesker, nor eliminate him from the equation. He had been working with him the whole time. But then again...

_What if Wesker's working by himself? What if Crow is just as out of the loop as I am?_

Ada ignored his poke at the truth and continued her interrogation. She still had the gun, so that meant that she didn't have to give him anything. "How did you know he was credible?"

"Well, he _did_ have the sample, but I assume you mean how did I know Wesker wasn't just some thug who swiped it. He and his associate had an impressive wealth of knowledge and information. Not to mention the funds to supply a moderate country. I assure you, he was credible."

Ada pursed her lips tightly together. Hayes said that Wesker had an associate funding him, and Donovan told her that it was Crow doing just that. It was easy to put two and two together. "When did this happen?"

"He came to me several months ago," Hayes replied. "He was very upfront about the whole thing."

"How so?"

"He approached me in person with the parasite, saying that he and his organization recently acquired a potential bioweapon, and wanted S to spearhead the research into it. All profit would go to my company."

"All the profits?" Ada's eyes narrowed. "That didn't strike you as a little strange? A secret organization simply handing over a major secret, saying to go nuts with it and that you can keep whatever you make off of it?"

Hayes shrugged. "Miss Wong, S is a business. My main interest is to stay ahead of our competitors. I could honestly care less what Mr. Wesker's personal goals are, as long as he supplies my company with research. With Las Plagas, S could easily dominate the bioweapon market."

_That proves that Umbrella and S are almost one and the same,_ Ada thought bitterly to herself as she sat down on the armrest of the opposite chair. Just how far did S's research extend? If Wesker had been working with them, they might have quite a bit of Umbrella's research by now.

She crossed her legs, giving Hayes a showing of her upper thigh. "So Wesker gave you the parasite, then what? What were you trying to accomplish with it?"

"I assume you know a little about the Plagas themselves?"

"A little," Ada answered carefully, "But as long as we're having such a nice chat, why don't you enlighten me?"

Hayes leaned back once again in his chair. "As I said before, Plagas by itself is a remarkable organism. Once it enters a subjects body, it can exert complete control in a matter of hours. Without severe mutation, it is able to enhance the physical body it inhabits by considerable magnitude. But as I also said, there was much more potential."

"Such as?"

"The gestation period of the parasite is long, far too long for any prospective buyers to have any immediate use. We wanted to find a way to increase the growth period, because after the initial infection, the host is able to act on their own, even resisting the parasite as it develops to some extent through willpower and medication."

_Like Leon,_ Ada realized as she remembered what happened in the cave on Saddler's island. He had lashed out and grabbed her by the throat. The faint red glow coming from his eyes had been terrifying as the parasite within him tried to kill her with his hands. It took a small amount of pain to jar Leon back to control. She hoped he didn't hold it against her.

"Then there was also this matter of their weakness to ultraviolet radiation," continued Hayes. "Strong as the parasite might be with its controlling characteristics, it is quite weak when exposed to the elements of a calm, sunny day."

"You're trying to weaponize it," Ada realized. "And you're planning on distributing it."

"Precisely," finished Hayes.

It was an evil plan, at least to an average person. But this was the new business of the 21st century. With Umbrella's fall, other companies were able to deal bioweapons on level ground. The only thing that was nagging in the back of Ada's mind was the fact that this was too general for Wesker. The plan that Hayes revealed to her led to money, wealth, and power for the average Joe. The organization had plenty of all three of those things. Wesker didn't want power, he wanted _power. _He didn't spend all those years with her in the organization just to kick back in retirement.

"Hmm..." Ada thought aloud. Time to play her trump card. "Something went wrong."

Hayes gave her a peculiar look, then shifted positions in the chair. He seemed to take a much bigger interest in her now more than ever. "You seem to be very well informed, Miss Wong. May I ask your source?"

"A little bird told me," was all she said with a casual shrug.

He once again gave her an almost sly, impressed look. He probably already knew what she was talking about. "You are quite right, Miss Wong. Something did indeed go wrong. That same bird told me something very interesting and disturbing at the same time. Mr. Wesker apparently took the organization into his own hands before coming to S, and he did it quite...forcefully."

"So you broke off your deal with him. Why? Who cares if Wesker took control of the organization. You still had the parasite."

"Yes, but there is one thing I put before business, and I'm willing to bet you have a similar protocol." Hayes gave her a very flat look. "I detest being used. Wesker came to me flying the colors of his organization, but it was all a fabrication, which meant he didn't want us knowing. If he was willing to kill off all of his coworkers, I hate to think what he was hiding, or rather, planning to do."

Ada didn't bother asking Hayes why Donovan had been treated with such hostility for revealing that information. She realized that at the time, S was probably just taking every precaution necessary. Donovan was an uncertain variable, and for that matter, still was in all of this. Most likely, he had his own plans, but they had nothing to do with the organization. Only Wesker and Crow wouldn't let that slide. Speaking of...

"Wesker doesn't take to kindly to betrayal, you know..." Ada said, speaking truthfully from experience. Back in Raccoon City, she had been one sample away from being a handful of stray ashes when the bombs fell.

"Quite right. To put it simply, S lost everything he gave us and what we learned from it. As part of a security precaution, Wesker left an agent within our ranks. When we neutralized him, there must have been some sort of failsafe, like a message or something. All of our data was erased, and the parasite, which was being kept by Wesker, vanished along with him. Everything I've told you thus far has been from personal memory."

_They were careful. They were able to knock S from its pedestal and still retain the parasite. But still-_

There was suddenly a knock at the office door, and Ada almost jumped as her body tensed. It had been so quiet during their conversation; the comparatively harsh noise brought back the reminder that they were at a dinner party. She looked at the door, her hand tightening on the gun, but it stayed closed. She glanced back at the CEO and raised her eyebrow suspiciously. He rolled his eyes and muttered to himself.

"Honestly, that woman..." He raised his voice and called out. "Yes?"

"Mr. Hayes?" came a woman's voice, muffled through the door. Ada recognized it as the woman who was trying to tell him about the phone call. "You still haven't taken that call..."

"Thank you, Katie, I'll be sure to do that right away," he said curtly back, not taking his eyes off Ada. "Now if you don't mind, I'm rather busy at the moment. In fact, this will be the last call tonight. If anymore come, I don't care who it is, just turn them away."

"Yes sir, sorry for bothering you."

There was nothing after that. Ada half contemplated opening the door to make sure the secretary wasn't eavesdropping, but then decided against it. Hayes seemed to exert enough control over his employees that they had nothing to suspect against their boss.

"We really should do something about that," he said, nodding towards the idle phone on the desk holding the call. "If you want, I could-"

"Not necessary," Ada interrupted, shifting the gun to her other hand, then leaning over to pluck the hand piece out of the cradle. "Hello, this is Mr. Hayes' _private_ assistant," she said into the telephone with her deepest, velvet-like purr. "Is there something I can help you with?"

The male voice on the other end was irritable from waiting. "_Yes, I've been waiting to speak with him for some time. Now if you could please put him on..._"

"Mmm, I'm sorry, he's very busy at the moment. You'll have to call again some other time. Good night."

"_What? Wait a-_"

Ada didn't care to listen, instead, just plunked the phone back down in its cradle. "Now where were we?" she said with a sigh of annoyance.

"That really is quite amazing," Hayes said. He broke her order of keeping his hands on the armrest, and brought one up to rest his temple on.

"What is?"

"That flawless transition. You didn't even bat an eye. One minute, you're a calculating assassin, the next, a perfect woman. All without an ounce of effort."

"I'm glad I impress you," Ada said dryly. "Hand back down, we're not finished yet."

Hayes smiled warmly, then dropped his hand back to the armrest. "Of course, please continue."

Ada sighed lightly, pinching the bridge of her nose with her silk fingers. It was all starting to catch up with her now. She knew Wesker's and Crow's hands, but she didn't know how they were going to play them.

"Wesker wouldn't have given you Las Plagas just for the sake of selling it to terrorists," she said slowly as she began to peel her gloves off. She found them to be somewhat irritating, like the senses in her hands were being dulled. The red line on her arm glared as she tossed them on the desk. "What else was he working on while he was at S?"

"I don't know," replied Hayes, though his tone wasn't one of casual ignorance. "Though you may think I simply let Wesker into my facilities, I assure you, I was very careful of what he could and couldn't access. I also kept a respectable eye on him most of the time."

Ada arched an eyebrow. "_Most_ of the time?"

"Gluing cameras all over the place would have raised suspicion," Hayes said matter of factly. "But I agree, Wesker had something else in mind for Las Plagas." He hesitated for a second. "Care to hear my theory?"

"Sure, why not?" Ada said with a lazy shrug.

"To Wesker, the parasite is a bonus. It's not something he requires, but it will make his plans much simpler if he has it. No, what he's planning lies outside of S and Plagas. I'm sure of it."

Silence. Ada glanced at the clock on the wall. She was overstaying her welcome. Eventually, Hayes' secretary would wonder why the star of the party was couped up in his office, and the fact that her former employers were now her enemies made hanging around seem like a bad idea no matter where she was. She got the information she came for and then some. It was at least a start.

"Well..." Ada said slowly, not sure how to close the conversation. "It would be rude of me to keep you from your own party. You don't have any problems with me just leaving, do you?" She cocked her head. "Or am I going to have to handcuff you to the desk."

Hayes smirked. "I assure you, Miss Wong, you are not my enemy. Therefore, you are free to leave however you wish." Maybe interpreting that as a truce, he took his hand off the armrest and leaned on it once again. "Just what do you plan on doing now?"

_Good question. If I even knew that myself..._

"If you're interested," he continued, "I always have room in S for a woman of your caliber."

Ada gave a brief roll of her eyes. That offer had come so many times from so many people. _What can I say? I guess I'm just popular._

"Sorry Mr. Hayes," she said smoothly, sliding off the armrest and clicking the safety on her gun. "I can tell what kind of businessman you are, and trust me, you wouldn't like how I operate."

"I don't know about that. Never judge a book by its cover, my dear. Are you sure? In five minutes, I can change this party from a new health care plan to the welcoming of Wong, Assistant Head of Operations for S Incorporated."

"That's very sweet and generous of you," Ada said with a chuckle as she holstered her weapon on her thigh, "But that kind of attention is the last thing I need right now. Maybe when this is all over I'll pay you a visit. Then we'll talk business." She turned, and with a casual wave bid farewell to Hayes.

"I thought I would at least try. Have a pleasant evening, Miss Wong," he called after her, then added, "Best of luck."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8  
**

"Sir, I think this is a very bad idea," Leon S. Kennedy said for what felt like the hundredth time as walked down the hall with his boss. The GSA was its usual busy self, it's halls full of both office personal and government agents. Leon weaved through the foot traffic as he trailed his boss, who seemed more focused on trying to lose him in the halls.

"I know, Agent Kennedy," replied Director John Fischer tiredly as he continued his stroll. His voice hovered somewhere between annoyed friend and irritated employer. "Your opinion will be officially noted in my report. However, I believe the benefits outweigh the risks."

Leon glanced down at the wad of files he held in his hand, especially at the first page, the page that held the message.

"_S is in Prague. She will be there._"

That was all it said; short and sweet. The rest was technical jargon about the attempt to trace the message, which, despite the inch of paperwork detailing the process, had come up completely empty. It was a total dead end, almost like the two sentences had simply fallen from the sky on the GSA doorstep, which made Leon wary about the whole thing.

"This message was completely untraceable," Leon stated, even though he knew very well that Fischer knew that. "Hunnigan looked at it for who knows how long and came up with nothing. Whoever sent it doesn't want to be found."

"We know Wong and her organization have enemies, so it wouldn't be unnatural for one of them to try and tip the scales against them."

As soon as Leon saw the message, he knew it concerned Ada. Had either parts of the message been alone, it wouldn't have meant anything. But the fact that 'S', and 'she' were together meant Ada Wong. After all, S meant pharmaceutics, which led to Umbrella, which led to Raccoon City, which led to bioweapons.

Almost everything could be traced back to Raccoon City.

"But that's just it," Leon said, almost frustrated by the whole thing. "We're playing right into their game then. What if this is some kind of trap?"

"Noted once again, Agent," Fischer said with a trace of a sigh in his voice. "But right now, Wesker is at the top of the food chain. I will not waste the slightest chance to bring his right hand operative into custody. The order has been given, so I would appreciate it if you stopped wasting my time and yours, Kennedy."

Leon's shoulders sagged at his boss's definitive answer. "Yes sir, understood."

"You'll be in charge of the whole operation," Fischer continued. "We've even managed to get help from the Czech government. The Foreign Police will be working alongside with our agents. Now get saddled up and get moving. We don't have a lot of time if we want this operation to be successful."

* * *

That conversation had happened a little over a day ago.

"Sniper teams, check in."

"_High-ground One, ready and waiting. We have full visual on the entrance. Over._"

"_High-ground Two, rear block covered. Over._"

"_High-ground Three, adjacent rooftops covered. Over._"

The rest of the teams continued to sign in. They had set up nests at various points around the building the S party was occupying. Their orders were to observe only and relay intelligence, despite the fact that all of their weapons were very much loaded.

More teams were spread across the city at key intersections and roads. Prague was a big city, so watching every corner was virtually impossible. But they didn't have to watch every corner.

Finding the exact location of the S party had been easy. It was being promoted in just about every magazine and newspaper across the country. The Czech government had forbidden them from simply storming the building on grounds that it was bad for international relationships. After all, it wasn't just the Czech Republic that would be benefiting from this. About half a dozen other countries would consider accepting S business if everything went well. The more discreet they were, the better.

Night had fallen, and Leon was wedged in the back of a cramped van filled with surveillance tools and equipment. Last time, it had just been three of them after her with the quick help of some local law enforcement, but Ada Wong had slipped away.

Now, the gloves were off. She had antagonized the better part of the American government. Leon had about 2 dozen agents under his command, handpicked for the mission by himself. On top of that, they'd even received help from the Czech Republic government. The entire police force was deployed throughout the city, ready to act on any notice.

He sipped a cup of steaming coffee. Drinking caffeine when he was already jittery was probably going to be a bad idea. The bitter drink tasted horrible, brewed from a small portable coffee make crammed in the corner of the van. Leon set the cup back down after making a face.

He shot a glance to his left at Hunnigan who was busying herself making sure all of the equipment was up and running, sipping her own cup of coffee without complaint. He looked closer, and saw that she looked a little pale, her young, almost girlish features nervous behind her wire-rimmed glasses.

"Hey," Leon said. She twitched abruptly as if jerked from a trance. _Yeah, she's nervous._

"Yeah?" she asked.

"You going to be okay?"

"Um, yeah, I think so," she replied, looking back to her computer screens, about six in total. "It's just that, this is sort of the first on-location op I've done...ever."

That perked Leon's interest. She was always his voice on the other side of the radio, but he found the fact that someone so talented in the agency had no field experience. "Really?"

She nodded, then nervously tugged at the strap of the Kevlar vest over her white blouse. Despite that she was on a mission, she still wore a secretary's outfit: a simple gray skirt, white blouse and blazer, the latter of which was hung over the back of her chair. The armored vest sat bulky on her small frame, and it didn't look like it was comfortable for her to wear.

"It's not...going to be particularly dangerous, right? I mean, right here?" She pointed to the floor of the van.

"Don't worry, you'll be in the van. It's completely armored, not to mention undisclosed. You've got a couple agents with you for backup, and we're only after one person, so unless this _is_ a trap, then...well..." Leon paused. "You'll be in the van," he finished flatly.

She nodded, as if his lame explanation answered her question exactly. "Okay, you're right."

Leon decided to let it go. Hunnigan would probably be fine. She could think clear under pressure, and even if by some tiny margin she freaked out, it wouldn't cripple the entire operation. He pressed his finger to the radio bud in his ear, activating the channel between him and the teams. "Ground teams, report in."

"_Unit One, on the corner of the block. Nothing to report yet. Over._"

"_Unit Two, across the street. Nothing, over._"

Two solitary agents dressed like civilians watched the front of the building. Any more would be suspicious, even amidst all the people outside. The less people there were just standing and watching the better. A dozen more agents were scattered like a web in the surrounding blocks, ready to take action the moment Ada was spotted.

Leon's plan was to try and take her by surprise and get her surrounded before she could escape. If they could work in unison with the local police, they might be able to bring her in easily. Although, Leon knew with Ada anything was never easy. She was as deadly as she was beautiful, and very passionate about her job. Catching her wouldn't exactly be a walk in the park.

"Copy that," Leon replied over the channel. "Keep a close eye. If we're lucky, we might get her through the front door."

"_Copy, Kennedy_," replied one of them. "_But there's a lot of people out here. What if we miss her?_"

Leon paused for a moment, thinking, then spoke into the radio. "Look for red."

"_...uh, roger. Will do. Out_"

There was a muffled groan of metal as the van's rear door latch was turned. It opened, letting in a blast of cold air as the stale, warm air from the van's heater was swept away. Another agent crammed into the back, rubbing his hands for warmth. Leon glanced at him as he finished checking the comms with Hunnigan.

"What's up, Bryce?" he asked.

"Nothing yet," Bryce replied. "Still waiting for her to show."

Bryce Andres was one of the first agents selected by Leon for the mission. He was a two year veteran in the GSA, joining after Leon by about four years. He was even descended from a Czech family, and happen to take an interest in the cultural an language. The fact that he spoke fluent Czech made dealing with the foreign police much easier.

"_High-ground Two, see what's going on down there?_"

"_Yeah, I see it. Some guy's getting nasty with the hired muscle. My guess is he's not on the list. Or he lost his invitation._"

There was a crackling chuckle as the snipers ended their exchange. Being hooked up to the entire team could drive a person insane. The never-ending chatter of reports and confirmations was almost like having a second conscience obsessed with tiny details. It made thinking clearly difficult, but not impossible. In fact, Leon had grown so used to it that it was almost like having a second set of eyes, or rather, about a few dozen sets.

"Are the local police setting up the roadblocks?" Leon asked Bryce.

"Yeah, just like we asked. They're keeping traffic moving through for now to keep tension to a minimum. No one's going to get to that party in a hurry if they plan on taking a car. Other than that, they have enough ground patrols around the area to back us up if we need it."

"_One, we've got a limo pulling up._"

"_See it...negative, older couple._"

Then...

"_Two here, I see red exiting the building..._"

"_Yeah, me too._"

Leon bolted forward in his chair, his hand flying to his radio bud. He could almost see it, behind his eyes as his team spoke for them. A sea of dark, uninteresting people moving like shadows along the street, and right in the center of them, a blaze of red. But not yet, they couldn't move in until they knew for certain. "Snipers, confirm."

"_High-ground one, confirmed. Asian woman in a red dress just exited the building. It's Wong._"

"Bryce. Car. Now," Leon snapped. The agent blew out the doors and yanked open the door to the sedan waiting behind the van as Leon continued to command the situation. "One, where is she headed?"

"_Nowhere yet boss. Looks like one of the valets is trying to get her a cab._"

"Any sign of disturbance? Did anything happen?"

"_Nope, doesn't look like it._"

Leon shut his eyes, letting the constructed image of what was happening be the only thing he could see. Ada was leaving the party, from the front door, and she wasn't even shooting anything. Just what was she doing there? "High-ground six, what's the skinny on traffic?"

"_North road is almost completely cut off. Police are only the limos are getting through. It looks like they set up some kind of faux accident. Ambulances, fire trucks, the whole nine yards._"

"Seven, what about the south?"

"_One way street that turns onto the wrong side of the building. Very little traffic actually going to the party, since it looks like the city has the road re-routed for it._"

"Copy. All units, get ready." He looked to Hunnigan. "Hunnigan, you've got the seat," Leon said as he threw his bomber jacket on, covering his weapon in its holster under his arm and his Kevlar vest. "Start to guide the rest of the agents in, just like we planned."

She nodded once, determined. "Got it."

He stuck his finger to his radio. "One and Two, do _not_ spook her. Whatever you do, do not draw attention to yourselves. The longer we keep her in one spot, the better our chances."

Leon hopped into the passenger seat of the car, and Bryce screeched into traffic. The monitoring van had been parked several blocks away from the building where the S party was happening for subtlety reasons.

"_Comm test, Leon_," chirped Hunnigan's young voice. "_Read me?_"

"Loud and clear. Two, talk to me."

"_Nothing yet,_" reported the agent. "_Valet's got nothing with the cab and oh, she's moving, heading north. See her, High-ground Six?_"

"_Yep, moving right at me._"

"Two?"

"_Didn't spook her Leon, didn't even look at me. Something's making her uncomfortable, and I don't think it's the fact she's cold._"

"Got it. One and Two, tail her, but stay the hell back. Everyone else, just watch yourselves. Something doesn't feel right."

"_Leon, she's coming up on the next block, turning east. Ah shit! She's running! In pursuit!_"

Leon's adrenaline flared. It felt like a backdraft washing through his entire body, dispeling the cold winter air inside the interior of the car. The trap wasn't set yet, and Ada was already moving to escape it. Too many of the agents were spread too thin. All it would take was a sizable gap in their ranks and she could slip through the perimeter.

"Stay on her!" he barked into the radio. "Bryce," he said tersely to the agent next to him. "Bring us around and try to cut her off. Get the locals on our tail."

Bryce floored it and began to weave through traffic, issuing angry honks from the law abiding drivers. While he did, he snatched the CB radio that was tied into the police frequency and spoke a stream of Czech into it. Leon had no idea what he said, but it worked. In a minute, several squad cars had joined them, blaring their sirens and forcing civilians to make way.

"One!"

"_Still moving east!_" came the agent's pant into his radio. "_Two streets up from yours, towards a t-junction! Goddamn, this woman can move..._"

"Bryce, pull us ahead," Leon ordered, despite the trouble he was having maneuvering. Traffic was getting thicker. Their perimeter was almost too secure, intending to keep cars away from the party, and now they couldn't get their own in. But Bryce proved to be as clever as his driving was reckless, and they pulled onto the right road.

They skidded to a halt on the t-junction, Leon barreling out of the car even before it stopped moving. He drew his gun as three squad cars pulled up as well, forming a scattered barrier on the street. He saw her, the hem of her dress forming a long red trail as her powerful legs carried her fluidly. Their eyes locked, and for a single second, time wavered. Her eyes widened in surprise as she recognized him against the dark glimmer of streetlights and the blue and red of police lights.

"Ada, stop!"

She turned direction on the spot, turning down an alley. Leon swore and took off after her, Bryce at his heels. It had turned into a foot chase. The end of the alley was blocked by a rickety chain link fence, but she seemed to scale it without even touching. Leon hit it hard, the metal sagging under his heavier weight as he hoisted himself over. She had already vanished.

"Guys, keep talking!"

"_Got her. Right at the end of the alley,_" said one of the snipers that had some kind of visual. "_She's heading south on the next street. Traffic's pretty bad._"

Of course Ada would seek every advantage in her escape. By running near heavy traffic, the following police couldn't get close with their cars. All she would have to worry about were the agents on foot.

Leon burst out of the alley, veering right towards the next street. He caught a glimpse of Ada's crimson dress as she slipped around the corner. Behind him, Bryce landed and pursued them both. The next street was indeed almost gridlocked just as the sniper reported. Distantly, Leon heard the wail of sirens as the police joined the hunt, but he knew that they would probably stay distant.

Snowbanks from an old snowfall were culling any pedestrians on the sidewalks. People were jostled as the Asian woman flew past, then were nearly shoved off their feet as the two agents followed in her wake. She was slowing, but not nearly as much as Leon and his partner.

Ada cut across the street, in between the bumpers of the nearly stationary cars. Leon took a gulp of fresh air into his lungs and hurtled the dirty snowbank, then leaped onto the hood of the first car in front of him, mantling up and over it, then vaulted to the next one. Angry honks squawked from each car as his heavy treads dented and blemished the painted exteriors. As he moved up and down the curve of the cars, he saw Ada glance behind her, cool determination etched on her beautiful face.

One of the snipers surveying the chase must have left his radio on, because Leon heard his voice, low and muttering in his ear. "_Watch the bus...watch the bus...watch the-_" Leon rounded the corner, sprinting hard across the empty lane of traffic, just as the behemoth vehicle bore down on him, honking loudly. "_WATCH THE FUCKING-_"

The bus blew past him, missing him by a mere foot as the gust of cold moving air washed over him from the backdraft left in its wake. Bryce had to stumble in his run, lest he run headlong into the passing vehicle.

"_Goddammit!_" the sniper swore, more out of relief than anything else.

Getting a fresh burst of adrenaline and a sense of giddy luck from almost winding up as roadkill, Leon willed more speed into his legs. Ada was fast, and he could keep up with her, but she had too much of a head start. Eventually, she would get beyond the view of the snipers, and she might slip away the next corner she turned.

"Hunnigan!" Leon panted into his radio. "Status!"

"_Only a half a dozen agents, Leon._" she reported. "_The rest are too far to help._"

"Get them here, Hunnigan!"

They chased down another street. A wail of sirens drew close, and half a dozen squad cars pulled up at the next intersection. As soon as they screamed to a halt, Ada veered again, cutting across the street, narrowly dodging some moving cars. Leon followed after her along with Bryce as she bolted up a set of stairs that led to a train station. It was a double level station, with the boarding platform above and pedestrian walkways below.

_Dammit! If we lose her here she could get on a train and vanish!_

When he reached the top, his hopes soared. The agents Hunnigan had mentioned were approaching from the other side, cutting off her escape and putting the numbers in their favor. They just needed a few more seconds to cover all the exits, and they might have a chance...

But Ada didn't halt her sprint. The agents, Leon, and Bryce came closer and closer, closing like a hand around her. If she didn't stop, they would all collide in a brutal impact of bodies. The station platform was clearing, people desperately trying to get out of the way of the incoming train wreck.

Suddenly, Ada cut hard to the right and bolted for the railing. Leon was almost close enough to reach out and touch her. He did. As she neared the railing, she grabbed it and vaulted over it, just as Leon's fingertips grazed the silk of her dress. As inappropriate as it was as his quarry fell beyond his reach, Leon inanely thought of just how sexy she really looked. She was a brief flash of creamy skin and red silk just before his mind kicked back to reality.

_Shit!_

It wasn't a far drop, and she didn't even break a heel as she hit the ground, tucking and rolling perfectly as if she had done it a million times, then took off running again.

"_Go!_" Leon yelled to the agents. "_Get moving!_"


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The cold, wet ground felt like a long tongue licking her bare shoulder as Ada came out of her roll, her shoulder studded with loose specks of asphalt and dirt. Above her, Leon and his friends tore away from the railing, preferring not to take the risk of the fall. It had been a stupid, desperate maneuver, and she almost payed the price. Her left calf was on fire, almost sprained from the fall, and now it was going to slow her down.

She tried to ignore the dull burning pain and kept moving. A light glaze of sweat was already beginning to coat her skin, chilling her as the wind hit it.

_What are you doing here Leon? How did you find me?_

Those were the types of questions that had been bombarding her ever since they locked eyes. Yes, she was wanted by the American government, but after their last encounter, she made extra sure to cover her tracks more thoroughly. Finding her should have been next to impossible, let alone being able to set a trap for her...that is, unless she misjudged Crow. Did he lure her into a false sense of security, only to trickle information to her whereabouts? But that was risky, even for him. She knew far too much for him to simply hand her over. And how did he know where she was going to be?

_...and unless he's just plain crazy, he wouldn't hand over the woman he was infatuated with, either. So what the hell is going on?  
_

Ada bolted back along the streets. Behind her, Leon was continuing pursuit. She had to lose him at any cost! But all she had were her legs, and judging from how effortlessly she was being tracked, Leon had quite a sizable force with him. She briefly thought of her grapple gun, laying uselessly in her suitcase back at the motel. A tool that would give her an immeasurable advantage; a lot good it was back there.

Traffic ahead was clearing out, and just ahead, the flash of red and blue was visible. She turned into the next alley ahead. It was a dead end, but that wasn't a concern as she sped up the steps of a loading dock, then jumped and grabbed the lower rungs of a fire escape and began to climb. Halfway up the first landing, she felt it shake and looked down, seeing Leon and the others beginning their ascent after her.

Ada didn't even really consider the fact that all of them below her craning their heads up to see might get a peek up her dress.

Gulping more cold air into her now burning lungs, Ada mantled the fire escape upon reaching the top and took off across the clustered roofs. The chase now extended to the historical Prague roofs, so close together that traversing them was as easy as moving along the sidewalk. The traditional tiled shingles clacked loudly as they were assaulted by the points of her high heels. All that lay in the way were modern additions, like air conditioning units, and small gaps where alleys cut into the sides of buildings.

Leon wasn't making it easy for her. She spared another glance behind her. Way ahead of his compatriots, he barreled off the metal staircase in pursuit. The fact that he pulled his gun earlier but didn't shoot meant they wanted her taken alive. The last thing she wanted was to face either him or the American government, or worse, face him while in custody of the American government.

As the flight continued, more of the agents fell back, save for Leon and a few others. The chase was certainly weeding out who was adept at running, as Ada noticed from the ones trailing were slowing from lack of breath. Still, a few stayed with him hot on her trail.

The rooftops sank low, and Ada took the chance to drop from them. The fall was brief, and she landed as gracefully as possible on a closed dumpster in an alley, her weight flexing the plastic cover. She hopped off, and halfway to the street there were two resounding crashes from behind, first one, then the other. Breaking plastic and male grunts. One of them had to be Leon.

Ahead of her, across the street was another train station. In a chase like this, the cops couldn't shut the train down on such short notice. If she could time it right and give them the slip, she could be on a train and away from their grasp, then make it to an airport to get out of the country. It may have looked like a way out, but as she sprinted towards the station, police cars screamed into view.

She let out a vehement grunt of fatigue and frustration, then cut hard to the only available path to her, a gate that led to the tracks. The station turned out to be much more than just a simple stop. There was an entire yard of immobilized trains, sitting silent in long rows. Close quarters, no way of knowing if there was another exit other than the one she entered in. An ironic voice laughed in Ada's mind: _End of the line._

_Shut up! You stupid bitch, don't even _think_ that!_

Down two rows and cutting past a train car out of sight, she slammed against another, breathing ferociously. Each cold breath she took felt like boiling water filling her lungs. After a few merciful mouthfuls, she quieted her gasping and forced to intake through the nose. She had to listen...

Faint sirens, steadily getting louder. Footsteps, and a lot of them...coming from the way she entered. Her hand slipped to the slit in her dress, pulling free her weapon. The long silencer glistened dully in the distant fluorescent lights that spotted the yard as it cleared the darkened red silk.

_Not for Leon...Not for Leon..._

This probably wasn't going to end without a little blood, but if Leon came into her sights, there would be no way she could pull the trigger. If that happened, game over. But if it was a stray cop who stood between her and freedom, she wouldn't think twice about dropping him. She would even be as nice as to give him an open casket.

Softly, still ignoring her body's urges to gasp for breath instead of breathing normally, she took off at a light jog. The gravel beneath her heels crunched softly, but aside from being a little unsteady, would help to dull her otherwise loud footfalls. Pollini's were sexy, but they made a hell of a lot of noise on a solid surface.

Two officers rounded the corner, but her crimson form had already melted into the shadows behind another car. Ada paused, sinking low in a crouch, listening and wincing as her leg cramped slightly from the earlier fall. They kept their voices low, and every once in a while, a quiet stream of Czech would whisper from a radio, ruffled with static.

"-_Kde je ona?_"

"-_Kruh kolem zpět. Špatnému pokrytí-_"

Ada slipped to the next car. Flashlight beams pierced the darkness along the cars. Ducking low, she crept further into the yard. More beams crisscrossed, searching silently for that telltale red color amidst the drab surroundings. When they faltered, she darted across a path, blading her body against the freezing surface of a train car. Two cops passed beside her, scanning for movement. She rounded the corner and-

"-freeze! Don't move!"

Ada whirled in an arc of red as she faced a flashlight blinking hard in the Maglite's powerful glow. It was an agent, not Leon, with a light and a gun, his arms crossed in the professional flashlight search fashion. She raised her gun, tensed her muscles and-

"-don't even think about it!"

Another off to her left, followed by a local cop. More voices. Cops were swarming in from down the tracks, weapons and lights raised. Some squeezed through between cars, then readied themselves once free. Within seconds, she was completely illuminated from hand-held lights.

Too many to shoot, too late to run. They circled around her, closing their ranks in the tight quarters. All of them were barking different orders, some in Engish, others in Czech. Drop the gun, don't move, lie on the ground, surrender...She tried to squint through the light for Leon's familiar face. Was he even among them?

_Where are you Leon?_

She couldn't see him. The orders grew harsher, the agents and cops holding the weapon bristling forward like rabid dogs held back on chains as they yelled at her.

Slowly, as if the motions were alien to her, she cocked her hand back, directing the barrel of her Beretta to the sky. Her index finger unhooked from the trigger, and she let the gun fall to the ground, then raised her hands.

It was like someone let the dogs off their chain. As soon as her weapon hit the dusty gravel, they dove forward, grabbing her by the arms, and pulled her to the ground. A knee dug into her spine, another on top of her neck as she felt the cuffs circle her wrists. No sooner than her face was pressed into the rough stone, the arms hauled her to her feet painfully, the glossy silk of her dress powdered with gray dust. They shoved her against the cold metal of a train car, and Ada felt the invasive hands over her body, searching her for other weapons. One found the stash on her leg and pulled the velcro holster free.

Once one-hundred percent sure she was no longer armed, two agents hooked her between them by the arms and began to drag her off. The crowd was separating, the cops and the agents into their respective groups. They Americans had their prize, and no doubt the Czech government was going to receive some of the benefits.

As they cleared the yard, she finally saw him. Leon didn't say anything as the agents hauled her past, nor did she give anything to him. The look he gave her when their eyes locked said everything that needed to be said. There would be plenty of time to put it into words back in her prison cell.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Miss Wong, are you aware of the severity of your crimes against the US government, as well as the crimes against the rest of the world?"

Nothing. Ada continued to stare past the agent, slightly to her left with a glazed look of boredom in her eyes as if he wasn't even there. There was a deathly pause, filled by the slow rustle of papers as her interrogator pursed his lips together and toyed with the edge of a file. The four guards in the corners of the room shifted uneasily, not taking their eyes, or weapons, off her for a second.

He was going to have to do a lot better than that to scare her. Ada had never been intimidated by a pencil pusher in her life, let alone one who was telling her what she already knew. She knew them when she saw them, and the man they sent in to question her was probably the most non-threatening person in the building. He wore a three piece suit and looked more like an accountant, complete with glasses, than an agent. His southern drawl, though cute at first, only served to convince her that he was not worth her time.

It also made him a that much more boring to listen to.

"From memory, I could name about two dozen countries and private organizations that put out warrants for your capture or execution. Now, you're lucky the United States got to you first, because unlike some of those countries and organizations, we're willing to talk things out. That requires some participation from you, of course..."

Her hands were tingling from the lack of blood flow. Cuffs were bad enough, but then they decided to strap on a few disposables, thick black zip ties, then redid the metal ones so they wrapped around the folding chair back. It kept her sitting crooked, and assured her that if she tried to fight back, she'd still have her hands behind her with a metal chair dangling from her wrists. She flexed her fingers, but it did little to alleviate the strain and discomfort. The circulation was all but cut off.

The agent snapped his fingers loudly in front of her face. Slowly, she glanced at him, a dreamy expression in her eyes, then looked away. The agent couldn't hide his frustration with a sigh. He scooped up the files he brought with him then moved to the door, banging on it once to notify the guards outside. Ada allowed herself to smile secretly as he exited and shut the door once again. So much for the good cop...he had offered her treats in exchange for her to do a few tricks, but all of it was laughably pathetic. Maybe they'd try the bad cop next.

It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The only sound there was was the rustle of a strap from the guards' weapons, or the occasional heavy sniff. It sounded like someone was getting over the last dregs of a cold. She'd also heard someone clear their throat once in a while. The only thing Ada could do was watch her reflection in the one way mirror and wonder if he was watching back.

_You have to be Leon. You probably are, anyways...but why haven't you come yet? Here I am, all trussed up for you, and you haven't even said hello yet._

It was all she could think about on the flight back in her tiny, cage-like cell. He wasn't on the same plane as her. In fact, ever since the end of the chase in Prague, she hadn't caught another glimpse of him. He seemed to be trying to stay as far away from her as possible. But she suppose she knew why; whenever the two of them were together, those feelings started to break free from the both of them.

All of this she kept bottled up inside of her. Outwardly, she was still the defiant femme fatale, cockily beating the agency at their own game. Anything short of thumb screws wasn't going to get anything from her. They could ask all the questions they'd want, and she would give them exactly nothing.

Inwardly, she was constantly brooding about Leon, and, now that she was under lock and key, what was going to happen. This was one of the many scenarios that she came up with from twisting the thread between them, and to be realistic, it was one of the more pleasant ones. The more unpleasant ones, well...she didn't want to think about them. She needed to count herself lucky.

Carefully, she glanced to one of the guards. From what she saw, he was identical to the other three; an agent with a tactical vest and an MP-5 submachine gun set to full auto. They were positioned so that she could only watch one at a time, and one was always directly at her back. Even if she wasn't restrained, she wouldn't have a chance; by the time she would be in melee range, she would be shot about a hundred times. In addition, there was a solitary camera in the corner of the ceiling, surveying the entire room like a dutiful sentry. It looked like the GSA wasn't taking any risks with her.

_I guess I should be flattered._

The guard caught her staring, and for a short second, they locked eyes. Ada grinned. "So, are you the one who's going to be giving me my spanking?" she asked conversationally, then arched an eyebrow playfully with a smirk.

The guard quickly looked away, but not without some difficulty and some hesitation in his eyes. Too bad her dress didn't have shoulder straps. She could slide one down then pull the whole "oops it slipped, could you help?" routine. It was a great way to get a man in close, but with her arms cuffed as they were, it would serve no purpose other than coming off as a total skank.

The minutes ticked away with no event. Ada timed the rock of her leg with the methodical march of the wall clock as it tallied each second of her internment. The room had very little moving air, each tiny sound bouncing off the insulated walls. The two agents she could see had slightly flushed faces; the room wasn't climate controlled either, but the almost stifling heat was far better than how cold the plane had been.

The single thump that struck against the armored metal door almost made her jump in her seat; the silence had been crushing. Even a tiny ripple of sound through the air sounded like the crack of a whip. One of the guards cautiously moved to the door and opened it a crack. Ada followed him with her eyes, but was unable to spot anything out of the ordinary, let alone hear anything when he murmured almost inaudibly through the gap.

Then, the agent straightened, raising his gun to his shoulder. "File out," he commanded briskly, then slipped through the door. The other agents, giving each other slight glances of suspicion, left one by one, being careful not to let their attention drift for too long around her. Ada wouldn't deny that the chill, brisk change of guard was enough to send a sense of foreboding through her. Maybe the GSA was going to take it a step further...

...and step further they did.

The only change in her emotion was a single blink as he stepped into the room and shut the door securely behind himself. Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong alone in a government building.

"Just you and me," he said carefully, slowly walking to the chair the other agent had once occupied, resting a hand on the back of it before pulling it out to sit. "Everything else is off."

Ada swallowed once. "Awfully kind of you," she replied, her voice breaking slightly from disuse for the last half a day. From the second the cuffs went on, her still-painted lips had been zipped, with the occasional irresistible comment to toy with a grunt here and there of course.

Leon gave the slightest shrug as he sank into the chair. "You know me..."

"...always wanting to do the right thing," she finished right away. "Though that doesn't constitute 'right'. That constitutes 'convenient'."

"I knew you wouldn't say anything when we could use it against you," he said readily, though Ada thought she caught a slight hesitation in his eyes. "I thought that you might be a little more comfortable this way."

"Or maybe you just didn't want the agency hearing something from your own mouth?" she offered, then cocked her head. "Or are you just going to start hitting me?"

Leon sighed and avoided her eyes. "How about we just cut all of this?"

"I don't know, I kind of enjoy the foreplay," she teased lightly. Without really thinking, she extended her leg beneath the table, the point of her foot making contact with his thigh in a one-sided game of footsie.

With an almost casual move of his leg, he knocked her foot aside, then gave her a cold look. The small smile on Ada's lips faltered a little. A crest of shame fluttered in her chest as she looked away to the corner of the room. Her actions were almost so innate that she couldn't stop them.

The silence killed the conversation, ending their first exchange. Leon drummed a few fingers on the metal tabletop, contemplating his next move, then looked at his watch. He wasn't the type to develop a nervous habit; it looked like he was working on a time limit here.

"What were you doing in Prague?" he asked quietly.

She scoffed and continued to give the corner her attention. "Wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Yes, I would."

_Goddammit, of course you would Leon._

He believed every word she told him in Raccoon City. He swallowed her story about looking for her boyfriend John, when she knew he was dead and gone for weeks already. He was even convinced he was her real boyfriend, and not some guy she was sleeping with to get information. He believed her lies and deception, believed it all even when Annette Birkin tried to tell him the truth. Only when Ada herself told him herself with a gun on him did he realize it. And by then, it was too late; the damage had been done.

"Wesker's up to something," she said finally, looking back to him. No need to tell him about S just yet. In fact, there was no reason to tell him at all.

"Ada, Wesker's _always_ up to something," Leon replied flatly.

"This time it's different," Ada told him with a shake of her head, then flicked her bangs back with another. "He had the entire organization breathing down his neck before. Now, he doesn't."

"I thought, for all intents and purposes, Wesker _was_ the organization."

"Oh Leon..." Ada rolled her eyes at his ignorance. "If only you knew. Wesker was only a member of the organization. At first, he was able to use his status and knowledge of Umbrella's research to work his way to the top. After all, that's why we let him in in the first place. Then, others began to see him as a threat, and they were right. He was too original, too into the game for himself. Not a team player, so to speak."

It was amazing how much she was letting go. Here she sat with who was professionally one of her greatest enemies, willingly giving away information about her employers. But with the organization gone and Wesker remaining, it sounded like nothing was really going to change. Leon still knew that Wesker was the threat. Who cared if he knew about a dead group of people?

"You suspected Wesker of betraying you, and you still brought him the sample from Spain?" he asked. The incredulous strain in his voice was more than obvious.

"Leon, that's my job," she said with exasperation. "My employers wanted me to go to Spain and retrieve a sample of Las Plagas, so I did."

"And Wesker?"

Ada sighed. "I don't know for sure."

His eyebrows raised. "What do you mean, 'you don't know for sure?'"

"I mean," Ada began patiently, "I don't have the evidence to prove my theory, just a lot of smoke and mirrors." She stared deep into him. "Isn't that how America works? You just can't go arresting people without evidence..."

"Well, why don't we talk it out and see."

It wasn't a suggestion. Ada sighed again and looked away, thinking about where the pieces had fallen so far. Donovan and Hayes gave her the same speech more or less, and they were playing opposite sides of the field. So most likely, at least _most_ of their stories were true, and Wesker and Crow took Las Plagas for whatever reason. That was a start.

"A few weeks after Spain, something happened," Ada said, settling back onto the chair. Her hands were just a few tingles above numb. Flexing them was now useless. "I said I'd take good care of the sample; I never intended to give it to Wesker. But something changed, and my boss gave me new orders to deliver it to Wesker instead."

"You never mentioned a boss," Leon said. "We always thought you worked directly for Wesker."

"I mostly worked under and reported to Wesker, but the organization was run by several different people, the leader of which was a man who went by the name Crow. I think you might have heard the name before..."

She knew he had. In LA, with about a dozen automatic weapons pointed at him at the same time. Just the thought of that night was enough to send a shiver down her back.

"And what did this Crow guy say? You didn't think it odd that his plans changed so abruptly?"

"Of course I did, Leon," Ada said irritably. "But how are you supposed to argue with a ghost of a man who has more power than half the world? Besides, the reason he gave me was more than enough: someone was targeting the organization."

"Let me guess, that incident in LA?" Leon asked.

Ada nodded, fully appreciating just how smart he was. "Yeah. I was tracking the assassin who was taking out members of the inner circle. That was all good and well, case closed. But about two weeks ago, I got another assignment, dealing with a rogue agent. It took a few days, but I managed to catch up with him, and he told me a few interesting things as to why he stabbed the organization in the back."

"He learned something about Wesker," Leon realized.

Ada smirked. "Only half right. Leon, it was Crow and Wesker the whole time. Spain was probably just a way to get Las Plagas without contending with the organization upfront. Once the two of them had it, they could take the risk to eliminate them at their leisure. What better way to hire an outside asset then have the rest of the organization running in circles trying to fix the problem

There was a pause as Ada let that sink in. Leon's features didn't change; he'd probably learned to keep a poker face throughout the years. "That's a pretty twisted conspiracy, Ada. How do you know how much of it is true?"

"I told, you I don't," she purred lazily with a shrug.

"So why are you telling me all of this then?"

"Because quite honestly, I have nothing left to lose. I've been around long enough to see what happens to captured agents. Even if all of this is a pipe dream, and I'm completely wrong or I've gone totally batshit, I'm damaged goods. I'm a risk to the organization, one they won't take back, and they'll make _damn _sure that no one else takes me either."

Leon leaned back in his chair, eyes downcast as he pondered what she said. "Well, I'll have to run this by my superiors and see what they say. You know they can't trust you right off the bat."

Ada shrugged indifferently. Of course they wouldn't. It would take a while to prove her merit, especially with the little evidence she did have. That's where S came in. If she needed to, she could drop the ball about their bioweapon program for a little leverage. Not the greatest way to repay Richard Hayes after his cooperation, but oh well...that was life in their world. She was far from sitting pretty though, as with her attacker in Philadelphia, the possibility that she was already discovered was very high.

Their business seemed to be concluded, but Leon didn't move. Slowly, he turned his wrist to check his watch. Ada looked too, though it didn't have any meaning, since she didn't know when their time limit began, or how big the limit was to begin with.

"Tell me why, Ada," Leon said quietly, not meeting her eyes.

"Didn't you ask me that in Spain?" she asked darkly, then added with a scoff, "What's it to you?"

"Because I want to know why someone like you does what she does," said Leon. "You could have been anything; a dancer, a model, an actress... hell, a Vegas showgirl."

Ada chuckled, amused by what he thought. It might have been six years since Leon was a rookie, but he hadn't lost that naïveness that made him so adorable, that sense of good and evil with nothing in between. "Oh Leon, do you really think that kind of life is special? What you see in magazines and TV is only an illusion. You see the glamor and beauty and supposed happiness and success, but underneath that is the pain and depression of a pointless life; success isn't measured in talent, it depends on how well you blow your boss. That might be fine for some, but me...I prefer a life that _I_ control, where my goals are only limited by my abilities. If that means I have to get my hands bloody or break a few hearts, so be it.

"I hate to point it out, but if that's what you believe, that makes you a hypocrite," Leon mused.

Ada narrowed her eyes at the remark. He had said it so casually, though coming from him, it may as well been spit in her face. "What are you talking about?"

"You said your goals are only limited by your abilities. But tell me this, Ada..." Leon leaned forward, folding his hands together on the table between them. "If that is true, why didn't you pull the trigger in Raccoon City?"

Her face flushed almost as red as the silk dress she wore when the blood ran to her cheeks. "I-I was out," she stammered. Half the truth.

"I checked your gun on the turntable before I left you at that office," Leon said staring at her hard. "You had a full clip. 15 rounds. After you fell, I checked it again. Even if you were out, you wouldn't have removed the clip." He cocked his head thoughtfully at her. "You, an experienced agent who controls her own life, was presented with the easiest way to complete your mission: shoot me and take the G-Virus. So why did you unload your gun?"

_He's right. He's right, and I won't admit it. God, why won't I admit it?_

Because he was right. Not just about Raccoon, but about her being a hypocrite as well. Despite her rough start in life, she managed to pull herself out of the gutter and into pleasurable living, all with her own effort and cunning. Everything about her was sculpted with her own hands, from her preened exterior and cool determination to the way she put a bullet between a target's eyes. Leon Kennedy interrupted that methodical flow to her life when they met, and made her realize that not everything could come from oneself. It had scared her at first, but the longer she was with him, the fear turned into longing.

Her throat tightened, forming a lump deep within the slender appendage. That little gnawing started in her stomach, slowly working its way upward. All of the familiar signs were there, and despite being alone with him and unrecorded, she couldn't come out and say it.

"You know I could never shoot you Leon," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, repeating what she said near tears in Los Angeles amidst a hail of bullets. "It's the same reason why you couldn't let me fall."

_Thump_

Just like that, their seemingly eternal ten minutes was up. With the hollow pound as the only warning, the door opened, and Ada pursed her lips together, regardless of whether the monitoring equipment was on or not. One of the agents from before entered, his weapon slung casually at his side.

"Time's up Kennedy, boss wants her moved into holding for now," he said to Leon with a jerk of his head towards the door.

Leon nodded absently as he gently tapped on the table between them, as if he was thinking of something else, which Ada knew he was. Without a word, he got up, eyes cast down and walked from the room, leaving her to struggle to put on her mask of neutrality back on after the onslaught of emotion.

Two more agents entered the room. The first said nothing as he calmly leveled his weapon at her face while the other two moved to her back. Ada felt hands at the cuffs behind her, undoing the locks around her wrist. There was a moment of relief as the metal bands came free, much needed blood flowing a little more freely, but it was short lived as they were reattached, this time free of the chair. A small knife snipped the plastic disposables away, and they roughly hauled her to her feet.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The two agents led her away, down the hall towards the holding cell area. Once Ada was out of sight, Fischer and Hunnigan emerged from the observation room. Fischer was nodding thoughtfully to himself, while Hunnigan stood obediently at his flank, papers in hand, though the stack had shrunk considerably.

"Not that I heard a single word of it Kennedy, but it seemed like you got quite a bit out of Wong," Fischer said. "What's the situation?"

"Interesting, sir, to say the least." Leon brushed a handful of his dirty blond bangs off of his forehead. He had not realized his forehead was slightly moist from a light sweat. The hallway seemed at least 20 degrees cooler than the stifling interrogation room. "It looks like Ada's organization has had some internal disputes. Wesker's still our enemy, only now he's gained a lot more resources."

He gave his boss the briefest rundown of his conversation with the Asian spy, leaving out the more...intimate parts. Fischer didn't know about his personal history with Ada, only what was detailed in his report of Raccoon City.

"Interesting indeed," Fischer mused to himself as he stirred his half finished cup of coffee absently. John Fischer was a man who rarely got worked up about anything. He was mostly a brooder, which made him the best when rational thought and tactics were necessary. So when he stayed silent longer than Leon was used to, he grew uncomfortable.

"Sir, what do you think? Can we trust her?"

Fischer finally looked up from his coffee. "Hmmm...Can we trust her?" he repeated. "No...at least not yet. No matter what she says, you said she doesn't have any proof. She's just as in the dark as we are, and unfortunately, that really doesn't help us...and I'm also a little concerned about her motives in Prague. Wesker and conspiracy or not, it doesn't explain what she was doing at an S function."

"She could be keeping up appearances," Leon offered. "If she was on a mission, maybe she doesn't want to draw attention to herself by ignoring orders."

"Maybe..." Fischer agreed as he drummed his fingers along the Styrofoam cup that held his drink. "But think of this as a chess game. We know Wong was doing _something_ involving S. We catch her, and she feeds us misinformation, which throws us from S's trail. All orchestrated by Wesker, and all he has to do is sacrifice a single piece." He sipped his drink.

"His queen," Leon replied, feeling silly at turning everything to metaphors. "But I can't see Wesker simply throwing his strongest piece away at this point in time."

"Kennedy, I think you'll agree with me that Wesker probably doesn't care how many pieces he loses, as long as he keeps himself in the king's throne. If he's willing to sacrifice Wong of all people, that just means whatever he has planned is big." He let that settle for a second, and Leon realized that he was right. "Type up a report, and meet me in my office in an hour for a full debrief. I want to discuss the entire operation in more detail with you. Meanwhile, I'm going to start looking into S, see if we can't find something irregular. Things are going to get heated very quickly."

Leon nodded. "Yes sir, not a problem. One hour."

Fischer departed, leaving Hunnigan with Leon outside the interrogation cell. He turned on his heel and briskly strode down the hall without a word to as to why she was still there. She had to jog to catch up with him and fall in step. "Since you're going to be busy, mind if I go over that stuff I told you about right now?" she asked him.

"Oh, yeah," Leon remembered before he could bury himself with his thoughts. "What's up?"

She handed him a folder, which he opened in stride. It pertained to Ada and the equipment she had been using during her capture. Snapshots had been taken, and everything was cataloged into evidence and analyzed. There wasn't and extraordinary amount of it; after all, how much could she hide under a dress like that, with red silk flashing smooth skin every time the breeze blew...Every item was sleek and sexy, from her gun to her cutting-edge PDA, as if they were custom made to match the very contours of their owner.

Leon tried to force the tantalizing thoughts and listen to Hunnigan rattle off the details from her own PDA. It was proving to be very difficult to not think about Ada when he was looking at her things.

"...silencer was unmarked, muzzle mounted. It was fitted to a Beretta PX4 Storm, 9mm with a registered serial number. We're tracking it now. She also had a switchblade, though forensics didn't pull any blood from it; it looked like it hadn't been used recently. She had a PDA, but the lab hasn't been able to get further than turning it on. The thing is encrypted like you wouldn't believe...and...Leon, is something wrong?"

"Huh?" He almost missed her question and stopped walking, too busy trying to distract himself from thinking of Ada in the reports. With a small flame of guilt, he realized he hadn't even really been listening to her. Hunnigan was staring at him expectantly through her wire rims, one hand on her hip, the other tucked around the stack of papers, looking very confident. "Yeah, everything's fine," he lied.

"You haven't hit on me in 36 hours," she said sarcastically, "Something is up with you."

He rolled his eyes, hoping his reaction looked genuine. "What, you miss it?"

"Hardly. But whenever you're around _her_, you just seem funky. Fischer hasn't noticed it yet, but he's not an idiot."

Leon felt his face flush with warmth. Hunnigan was now looking at him with an accusative raise of her left brow. Even though she was staring him in the eye, it felt more like she was staring _into _them, like she could read what he'd been thinking about. It was funny and a little inappropriate to think, but he couldn't see that type of look coming from someone who seemed so young. "Listen Hunnigan, I don't know what-"

She surprised him by tugging his wrist in an oddly firm grip, then yanked open a door they passed by. It was a small conference room just on the outer edge of the interrogation rooms, where agents would convene afterwards. Hunnigan pulled him within the door frame, scanned the room for life, then peeked around the door to make sure the coast was clear.

"Look," she said in a low voice when she turned her attention back to him. Half of her face was dark from the unlit room, the other half illuminated from the hall lights. "I'm by no means an expert in dating, but there is something going on with Ada Wong and Leon Scott Kennedy. Now, your subordinate is willing to play devil's advocate, unless you want me to go straight to Fischer and tell him that the GSA's best is _possibly_ compromised by a terrorist."

Leon stared in near-shock at her sudden change of mood. He'd known Ingrid Hunnigan to be either alert or exhausted, with every shade in between. She was always busy, and always followed orders to the letter, yet still found time to shoot down his manly advances on her. This sudden change in her attitude, and the fact that she was actually _threatening_ him was stunning to say the least.

"Hunnigan, I..." Leon trailed off, then sighed hard, knowing it was useless. "This is very complicated."

The young agent remained firm. "What happened?"

He sighed again. "Raccoon City. But you already know all this. It's where we first met. I was a cop, a rookie for that matter; naïve and stupid. Thought she was just an average civilian, looking for a loved one. There were plenty of signs, of course, like the fact she could shoot almost better than me, or when she just ran off sometimes. Annette Birkin even told me outright, and I still didn't believe her, but why should I have? I just thought she was a stimmed up psycho."

Hunnigan looked fascinated by the story, her eyes big. None of this had been in the report. Even her mouth was slightly open to gawk at him. "Even when Wong held you at gunpoint? Leon, she used you the whole way! You're a smart guy, what the hell were you thinking? You're lucky she didn't shoot you in the back!"

"I said Birkin shot her, and she fell off that bridge into God knows what," Leon said quietly as he leaned back against frame of the doorway, folding his arms. "I never mentioned the part where she lowered her unloaded gun and started to break down. Hunnigan, for that one second, she was willing to disobey whatever the organization programmed her to do. In my book, that's something...Then, she got hit, and, for all intents and purposes, Ada Wong died. I was left thinking that somehow I reached her, that somewhere inside her, there was a person who was willing to do good..."

He trailed the painful memory off, leaving a thick clump in his throat. His relationship with Ada wasn't exactly something he could talk about. The GSA had their own psych program, but most everything there was reviewed by the higher ups, and like Hunnigan said, if Fischer knew about any of this...well, he didn't want to think about his career when the government found out he was romantically tangled with a spy.

The young agent's eyes grew wide, losing their harsh accusatory stare and growing softer with sympathy. "Leon...I...don't know what to say."

"It doesn't matter" he replied, his voice tight with bitterness. "She shows up in Spain, and I was wrong the whole time. Six years later, she's still the same person, and I'm still an idiot."

Hunnigan seemed taken aback. At first, she seemed confident that she had snagged her superior in a little bit of gossip, but now, the face of the inexperienced young woman came back, discreetly avoiding his eyes behind her slightly nerdy glasses.

"You weren't kidding about it being complicated," she said faintly. There was a gap of silence between them before she continued, now hesitant. "Do you...do you still...have feelings for her?"

Leon sighed hard and brushed his damp bangs again. "I don't know...I just...I don't know..."

_Of course I do. I always have._

A pair of agents walked past, giving the both of them an awkward look as they stood huddled in the doorway of a dark room. They avoided their eyes, staying silent until they walked past.

"What are you going to do about it?" Hunnigan barely whispered.

"You're asking me what I'm going to do? I have a choice to put away the woman I care about for her horrible actions, or throw away my career and try to help her. What do you think?" He didn't mean to snap, but he did anyway. Leon immediately winced as Hunnigan's eyes drooped. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay," she replied. "Like I said, I'm not exactly an expert on the opposite sex. All I have are my cats, and I'm surprised that we even get along..."

Another silence stretched between Leon and his subordinate.

"So...are you going to report this to Fischer?" he asked heavily.

Hunnigan shook her head without hesitation, which surprised him. He was almost ready to kiss his position good-bye and get ready for the fallout. "It's not my place," she said. "I mean, you brought her in, and you went in there and got information out of her. You did your job, and you did it well, personal feelings aside. You seem to trust her, at least to some degree, and I trust you, so..." She made a motion of zipping her lips, then smiled softly. "Fischer won't hear about it from me, I promise. But Leon, don't call yourself an idiot. I might not be good with dating, but I can read expressions pretty well. This is tearing up her just as much you, so don't think that she's the same person."

Leon let out a sigh of relief and rubbed his eyes. "Thanks." He hadn't meant to beat himself up in the process. He was just venting frustration.

Just talking about it a little bit with someone, even Hunnigan who didn't know which end was up in the dating world, helped take some of the load off. He offered her a smile, then jerked his head down the hall. "Now what do you say we go have a quick look at that PDA, then I've gotta start that report for Fishcer."

"Sounds like a plan," replied Hunnigan, returning his smile.

They left the doorway, Leon feeling much better about the whole thing. At least there was one person out there who knew the truth about him and Ada and wasn't willing to either kill him or take his job. His respect for Hunnigan grew; she'd thrown a curve ball at him, one he never saw coming. But the elevated feelings were abruptly halted when Leon tried to hail the evidence checkpoint on his radio.

"What's wrong, not working?" asked Hunnigan when Leon tried the third time to raise someone.

"No," he said slowly with a frown. Come to think of it, he hadn't been hearing any transmissions for a while. Not one during his little chat with Hunnigan, or even during the time with Ada. But he was sure he'd heard the usual banter across the network earlier that day.

Leon couldn't explain it, but something didn't feel right. The GSA was not so much a building, but a living being in itself. There was someone always talking on any radio frequency; it almost served as the building's inner consciousness. Now the radio was completely dead, and Leon wouldn't even think of betting that no one in the GSA had nothing to say. It didn't even seem like the thing was turned on, even though he knew it was.

He caught Hunnigan's eye. "Central security is one floor down..."

"Read my mind," she said with a nod. "Let's go."

The two of them headed to the nearest stairwell, Leon's uneasiness growing with every step. He couldn't remember a time when radio silence was issued in headquarters and he was _not_ notified. The fact that it happened and Ada was in the building made it all the more unsettling.

_Maybe there was a drill, and with all the red tape and us bringing in Ada, it never got canceled. But Fischer's not the guy to just let something like that slip his mind...he'd take care of it personally if he had to._

The GSA HQ had several security stations, all equipped with cameras, metal detectors, weapons, and the like, but the main room that housed all the computer servers was near the core of the building. It acted as the main hub, everything stemming from that like a spinal column in a human body. If there was anything wrong, Hunnigan could get in right away and find out what, then probably fix it at the same time. It was probably nothing, just a minor security hiccup.

When she swiped her keycard into the reader and pushed through the door, Leon half expected there to be something immediately wrong that he could pick out; broken equipment, an injury, or something else noticeable. But all he saw was the single row of consoles and monitors, staffed by a handful of men and women, and the buildings main servers and mainframes stretching behind them in rows. A normal day at the office.

"Was there an order for radio silence or a test of some kind?" Hunnigan asked. Computers and technology were more her domain, so Leon let her do her own thing while he just listened. He'd probably just end up getting in the way.

The guards and techs watching the computers exchanged a confused look among themselves. "No," one of them said to her. "Why?"

"Radios aren't working."

Like it was a habit, as it should have been, the line of techs checked their consoles. The one who spoke before turned to her. "All systems are up and running just fine with green lights across the board. We installed the network update you sent just about ten minutes ago. The radio system is tied in with surveillance, so it might be a little buggy until it finishes."

Hunnigan frowned, brow furrowing deeply. "What did you say?"

"I said we already installed the update," the tech repeated, looking at her like she'd lost a screw.

Hunnigan turned to Leon, eyes wide with alarm. "I never sent the update...." she said to him quietly. "...I never even finished it." She whipped her attention back to the tech, this time snapping. "Where is it, which server?"

"Uh, number four," the tech replied slowly, now certain Hunnigan had lost it. "Rich installed it when it was dropped off, it should be just about done. Buy why-"

The tech never got a chance to finish his question, as she simply ignored him and briskly strode down the row of computer servers. Number four was halfway down. Leon followed her, then halted when she shoved the stack of files into his hands. "Hunnigan, what's going on?"

"Leon, someone installed something under false pretense and without authorization," she said crisply, scanning along the server until she found the disc port. There was something running in one of the drives. She hit the ejection switch. "If I'm right-"

_BANG_

The server exploded in a shower of circuitry, sparks, and plastic. Leon jerked in surprise, throwing his hands up in reflex as hot bits of debris peppered his upper body, sending the papers flying. Hunnigan fell back, hitting the server row behind her before the ground. Through the light ringing in his ears, he heard her cry out in pain.

"Hunnigan!"

Leon ducked under the spray of sparks that continued to belch from the destroyed machine, grabbing her by the collar of her blazer and pulling her away. As he propped her up against the wall safely away, one of the guards leaped over, fire extinguisher in hand to quell the small blaze. He had heard other screams, and now low frightened murmurs from the other staff, but he was too focused on Hunnigan to care.

Hunnigan's eyes were wide in shock, a small cut above her left carefully plucked eyebrow dribbling blood down her pale skin. Her wire rims were gone, and her normally neat hair in its bun was askew.

"Hey!" Leon said quickly, gripping her shoulders firmly. The white mist of the guard's extinguisher began to hiss everywhere as he sprayed the ruined server. "You okay?"

She bit her lower lip, then shook her head hard. Then Leon took notice that she was cradling her right hand, the one that had been resting on the server when it blew. When he saw the blood, he thought it was missing entirely, but then realized in the rush of adrenaline that she had four fingers and a thumb. A long jagged gash had opened on her hand, running from between her thumb and index finger all the way to the butt of the palm. Her hand shook violently, and Leon could only imagine the pain she was in. Blood was already covering the front of the navy blue skirt she wore.

"It...really...hurts..." she managed between gasps of pain. She looked ready to throw up, and her wide, glistening eyes stared straight through him as if he wasn't even there. In her current state, she looked about 15 years old and a pang of sympathy shot through Leon. She wasn't cut out for this kind of action.

"It's okay, Hunnigan, it's just a cut," he tried to assure her. "Get a medic in here!" he roared over his shoulder to one of the security techs, gaping at the scene in his chair. "It's a little messed up, but you're okay. C'mon, just stay with me."

"Se-security?" Hunnigan quivered.

Leon spared a glance over his shoulder, grimacing at what he saw. The row of monitors that displayed the video surveillance had been about a dozen or so across, two high. Each of them had shown a part of the GSA interior and exterior. Now, all of them where gray and white static. One of the remaining techs was cycling through cameras, but was met each time with a blizzard of static.

_No radios, and now we're completely blind...shit, this isn't good._

And that was putting it lightly. Without the radio network, the GSA would have no means to readily communicate with each other. If something happened, like an attack (which was looking very likely) the rest of the building wouldn't even be notified until it was too late. The camera servers were out, and every monitor in the building would be depicting the same snow show he was watching now.

_What the hell is going on?!_

But then he realized it. Servers didn't just explode, he knew that much. Whatever disc was put in there was rigged with a small charge, as if whoever sent it knew it was going to be pulled and wanted to cause as much damage as possible, all the while staying inconspicuous. And now the resulting damage crippled the entire surveillance network, and their radios were still out.

He was right to feel the uneasiness he did. Ada was there, and wherever she went, trouble was never far behind. The note about her location, her capture, and now the sabotage was way too convenient. It all added up so perfectly, but then again, hindsight was always 20/20.

Wesker contacted the GSA about Ada's location, dangling the bait, knowing they couldn't resist. The GSA brought Ada in, and made her helpless in the process. Wesker had a double agent within their ranks, and they crippled any security measure that could track them in the building.

They were going after Ada.

* * *

Ada didn't converse with the two guards that escorted her along the hall. She let them guide her along, one with his hand firmly on her upper arm while she blandly stared into empty space, lost in her sea of thoughts. Once again, she wasn't able to tell Leon her true feelings. Why was it every time it was about to happen, something stopped it?

_Don't bullshit yourself sweetheart. You had plenty of time. You couldn't just blurt it out when he sat down?_

The guard not holding her took a radio from his belt. "C-5, do you want us to run Wong through security one final time, over?"

In security, they'd probably get her to strip so they could get her into a holding uniform. Putting on one of those generic jumpsuits would be agony, and she hoped at least it wasn't blaze orange. If there was any color that Ada despised, it was orange. It was awkward and loud, with no subtle undertones or pretty shades no matter what you did with it.

The guard's query was met with an airy silence. No static, no dispatcher, nothing. He frowned at the radio in his hand, then tapped it against his palm. "C-5, did you get that last message, over?" Silence again. Ada glanced foggily over as he fiddled with the device, then glanced up and down the hall. Plain concrete brick walls and a tile floor. Empty.

"Batteries dead?" the one holding Ada joked.

"No, the thing's on," he replied, clicking the send button repeatedly and changing the frequency, then tried again. "Control, do you read? Christ, I swear-"

-Ada lunged into the guard holding her with a grunt, slamming them both into the wall. His grip loosened from the shock, and Ada tore free, hands still cuffed behind her, then snapped her leg in a kick, heel connecting with the temple of the other guard. He dropped like a rag doll, a look of surprise etched on his face.

The first guard got his hand on his gun just as the toe of her high heel buried itself between his legs in a simple yet elegant front kick that snapped like a whip. He stooped, holding his groin and moaning just as she brought her knee up into his skull, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Without missing a beat, she spun and sank in a squat over him, her hands scrabbling at his belt for the pocket that held the keys, finding it on a ring after a quick grope. Then came the tedious process of working the small key behind her back into the keyhole to unlock the cuffs. Luckily, practice made perfect, and the first cuff came free, allowing her to remove the next within the next two seconds.

The metal bands clattered to the floor along with their key. Ada stooped and pulled the gun from the fallen guard's holster, then after further thought listened into his radio for a second. There was no dialogue, nothing to indicate she was trying to escape, which was odd. The guard moaned and shifted, writhing about before hazily opening his eyes. She swooped down on him and smacked the muzzle of the the gun across his face, ensuring that he went back under. Combined with the faulty or dead radio that she dropped on his chest and the still-clear hallway, she had a little bit of a head start.

_Sorry Leon, but I can't just give up my freedom, unless its with you._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Ada didn't have as much as a head start as she would have liked. No sooner had she jogged down one hallway, the piercing buzz of an alarm began to blare, honking like some kind of winged animal would if it were part machine. An intercom sounded through the building's ceiling speakers over the cry.

"_Attention all personnel, lockdown has been initiated. Non-essential staff, please return to your offices for a level one security sweep. This is not a drill._"

The latter portion of the message was repeated for clarity sake. The Agency was a lot faster than she initially thought. Word had gotten out that she was loose, or someone had found the guards she dropped. But wait, that fast? It had been 30 seconds, a minute tops, since she broke free. Long enough for someone to find the bodies and pull an alarm? Feasible, but not likely...maybe there was something else going on.

Ada pushed it out of her mind and returned her focus back to escaping. That took priority. Anything else would have to be taken care of as she came across it.

The hallway turned left to a t-junction, and Ada peeked around the corner before moving into it. As soon as she reached it and began to debate to go left or right, two agents did the job for her as they appeared around the corner to her right. One of them wore a collared shirt and tie, minus the suit jacket that went over it, the other more casually dressed in jeans and a long sleeved shirt.

"Hey you, stop!" the one with the tie yelled, then both of them raised handguns. "Drop it!"

Ada spun and broke into a sprint, outnumbered and outgunned. The part of the hall she was in was just short enough to make a run for it. The agents opened fire, sending deadly lead over her shoulder as she rounded the corner. Part of it exploded into shrapnel as a bullet zinged close. The hallway turned to stairs, and Ada began to climb, taking three to a step and loosing very little speed in the process. A figure stepped into view at the top of the stairs just as she neared the landing. Without wasting time to identify gender or threat, Ada punched, burying her fist into what turned out to be the crotch of a man in a suit and tie, then pulled him forward by the collar as he stooped over, sending him tumbling down the stairs.

She pushed through a door at the top into a more public part of the GSA headquarters. The bland tiled floors were replaced by carpets, and the concrete walls were now wallpapered. Ahead of her, dropping from the ceiling, was a heavy metal gate. It was already more than halfway down by the time she got to it. Ada flung herself forward into a slide, her hip igniting painfully from the ground's friction as she skimmed on burber. The gate clanged down just as the last wisp of her silk hem passed it. As she rolled to her feet, more gunshots sounded as the pursuing agents opened up through the gate from the end of the hall, desperate at the last chance they had to drop her.

The bullets pockmarked the wall ahead of her, but she rounded the corner, out of their line of fire without injury. To her left, a door opened, discharging the single guard that monitored the checkpoint she just crossed. Too late and too close to shoot him, the guard swung a collapsible metal baton in his hand. The bludgeon almost clipped her gun arm, had she not jerked backwards reflexively. With three strikes, she hit and trapped his arm before he could retract it. _CRACK CRACK CRACK._ The bone snapped at the elbow, and Ada hooked his foot forward with hers, then kicked the back of his knee, dropping him down on his other knee. With a final chop, she struck his throat. The guard gagged horribly before twitching forward, down for the count.

Down the hall, an agent stepped into view, immediately opening fire with his weapon. Ada threw herself against the wall and returned fire, forcing him to dive for cover the way he came. The door to another stairwell was just behind her, so she kicked it open and bolted up the stairs just as another shot rang out.

_Up, up, go up. They'll already have the ground floor locked down. Only chance is to go up and find an alternate way down._

The stairs ended abruptly after two flights. The GSA, though it looked older on the outside, was probably renovated for security reasons. If they had a lockdown system with security gates, the interior was probably designed to be as inhibiting to movement as possible, especially given all the high profile suspects brought in.

_Like me._

Outside the stairwell was almost identical to the floor below her. The hallways were mostly empty, but as she rounded a corner she nearly bumped into three Agency staff, a man and two women who squealed as she blew past with her gun. Around another corner and the next person she nearly collided with was a guard who immediately grappled with her, grabbing her by the upper arms.

She lost her gun when he surprised her, but before he could wrangle her to the floor, Ada twisted and pulled, managing to offset his balance and drag him hard into the wall, whereas upon contact, he lost his grip. She followed up with a fist numbing punch across his jaw that slammed his head into the wall, then again with an elbow to his temple, denting the drywall beneath the wallpaper as he sagged to his knees, unconscious. Rapid approaching footsteps forced her to leave the gun and start running again.

Another gate ahead of her began to lower, and this time, Ada was unable to reach it in time to clear it. It clanged shut, blocking her immediate route to God knows where; she didn't exactly have the building layout memorized. So she went the one way available to her, the hallway that didn't lead back to the stairs or to the closed gate. When the path ended in a dead end with no window, she tried a door, finding it unlocked.

Ada kept low and creeped into the room, shutting the door softly behind her. Low, worried voices were audible from the bank of cubicles she was crouched behind. Personnel following lockdown procedures. Then somewhere, there was a crunch of wood and a few surprised gasps.

"Everyone, there's been a breach in security," came a loud voice. "Stay calm and start moving." The murmuring voices began to shift, moving to what Ada believed to be a door that was kicked in. Over them, Ada almost missed what the voice said.

"Initiate office sweep."

_Shit, they're clearing this floor._

Ada snuck low, making very sure that she didn't rise above the cubicle walls. Unless she wanted to leave the way she came and possibly meet up with pursuers, she was forced to play hide and seek. As she came to a path between the cubicles, she spotted the combat boots and digital camouflage of military fatigues. This far in America's capital, it was stupid to assume the army wouldn't be involved. The GSA probably had its own military staff to help with things.

Ada kept her movements quiet as she moved along the next row of cubicles. The alarm, not blaring in the current sector, was still faint in the distance, helping to quell the noise she made. She bladed her body against the corner just as she heard the heavy boots enter her row. Either the soldier was sloppy or following a different search pattern, as he didn't come down any farther. If he did, he would have easily seen her.

"Office clear," a voice said after the click of a radio. "Moving on."

She could just her the affirmation over the radio as the footsteps left the office. Looked like they were back online or using a different system. Ada crept to the cracked door after them, then peeked into the hallway. Three soldiers, stacked up in entry position stood poised at the next door. One of them kicked it open, resulting in a crunch similar to before, and they filed into the next office.

Seizing the absence that they left before they stuck a guard in the hall, Ada darted across the way to another door, opening it to find another office. This one had what she was looking for: windows. They even opened, though she had to release the locks, since it was the middle of winter.

The GSA, she noted inanely, seemed to have some kind of old fashioned architecture, despite the fact it was a relatively new (and secretive) organization. Snow had fallen sometime recently, dusting the old brick ledge which she now crept out on with a fine white powder. Just as she nudged the window shut with her toe, she heard the concussive force of the door being kicked open and froze, trying to make herself as thin as possible in between the segmented windows.

There was a tense moment where Ada simply thought the soldiers were going to start shooting and swat her right off the ledge, but it never came. She spared a very generous 15 seconds, then looked back into the room, finding it empty and sighed in relief. The office had been small enough, without the rows of cubicles, that the soldiers hadn't thought more to just have a quick peek before moving on.

It was hardly a moment to relax, as she was now balanced precariously on a wet, snow covered outcropping about 6 stories above the ground over the rear parking structure behind the main building. The hem of her dress fluttered from a cold unseen breeze, covering her legs in goosebumps. She spied her next route, a pipe on the other side of the corner she was mere feet from.

Being a red splotch on a segment of tan concrete gave her great sense of exposure. Hoping very much that no one was looking out a window or zeroing a rifle on her exposed back, she inched along the ledge almost daintily. Little clumps of powdery snow fell from beneath her ebony heels, gently fluttering to a balcony below her. If only she fell that lightly if she slipped....Eventually, she got a hand on the pipe and began to descend, taking it slow. Her only foot holds were strips of metal used to anchor the pipe to the wall, and though her Pollini heels were elegantly crafted and sleek, they were nowhere near meant for handling such meticulous footing. She slipped once, scuffing her knee hard against cold concrete, but managed to keep a death grip on the freezing, damp pipe.

Two stories down, Ada ran out of pipe. It simply ended above a snow covered balcony, to which she dropped and began scanning her next path. The ground below was still too far to drop to without injury, not to mention wide open. She eyed another balcony, an easy jump from hers, as well as the next beyond it.

No sooner did she cross the gap, movement and dull noise through the window caught her attention. There were Agency staff in the room, but that's not what the noise had come from. The noise was two separate doors crashing open as soldiers and agents entered the room, bellowing for the civilians to drop to the floor. Some did, others hesitated, which allowed her to sprint for the next jump.

Then the gunfire started, breaking through the windows in bursts of fury. She heard the chatter of a submachine gun, and the loud, thundering _boom _of a shotgun. Glass and snow and ice pounded her as she bolted across the balcony, hopping up onto its wide stone railing and vaulting to the next one. The bullets followed her as the gunners angled their shots through the window. With nowhere else to go, Ada jumped for the next balcony, though this one was far out of her reach.

She managed grab the wrought iron railing that was mounted into the concrete, but the cold, slippery metal, combined with the pain of hitting her arms during the jump and the bullets ricocheting inches from her hands, she slipped. Ada thought that was going to be it, but Providence managed to throw her another bone as she landed horizontally on another balcony below her.

_Owww..._

The fall and impact momentarily stunned her. She'd only fallen about fifteen feet, and the small layer of snow made sure her head didn't split like a melon, but none the less, it hurt. Now, that snow was melting against her hot adrenaline-laced skin and beading against silk as she struggled to her feet, then shoved through the balcony's door, one last round digging into the concrete door frame from a shooter above.

_That's it, I'm not leaving without that stupid grapple gun again._

Self reprimands aside, the room was clear upon entry. With her desperate and unorthodox maneuvers, Ada had either landed in a cleared sector, or one that had yet to be swept. Either way, they knew where she was, and it would be moments before the building converged on her.

She got moving, leaving the empty office that connected to the balcony and sprinted down the hall. No sooner than she did, she heard the yells behind her.

"_Hold it right there!_"

_You'd think with all the shooting they were doing, they would figure out that I'm not listening._ Ada kept her sprint at full speed and turned a corner before they could start firing.

"_Goddammit, shut the gate! Shut the gate!_"

A checkpoint ahead of her had a barred off door, like in a jail cell, standing wide open. It started to slide shut, and once again Ada leaped and tried to flatten her body. The edge of the door clipped her foot as it clanged shut and locked behind her. As she scrambled to her feet and started running again, she heard the voice and saw the shadow of movement through the ajar door just ahead.

"Seal the exit! She's-"

Ada lowered her shoulder and rammed the door as she passed it. Pain welled up in her shoulder, but the door slammed shut hard. Just before it did, she had felt it hit something, hopefully whoever was inside trying to pursue her. The door didn't open again as she moved on, so it must have been quite a hit.

Another gate was already shut in front of her, blocking the way. Ada veered out of the hall and through another door, through an office, then into another hall. The GSA was starting to look more and more like a maze, and she was the rat inside. But she had to be getting close to a point where she could slip out. More windows were showing the outside, and it had been only minutes; they wouldn't have been able to create a good enough perimeter yet. All she needed to do was sneak past and disappear...

The corridor was empty and gloomy. The way behind her blocking pursuit, Ada tapered her run to a light jog, then paused altogether when she reached the next intersection of hallways. They spread out in all for directions, and without much though, Ada went right. That way followed the outer edge of the building, so she'd be close to an exit if one presented itself. Quietly, she pushed open a door, scanned the opening, and crept inside.

The shot came out of nowhere.

Ada instinctively jerked into what she hoped was safety. Only then did she feel the pain in the side of her gut and the warm blossom beginning to spread. She clamped a hand over the spot and looked. Her fingers were wet with the blood that was oozing out of the hole in her side. Her blood.

"Ohh..." she moaned through a clamped jaw as she tried to quell the feeling to throw up. She felt the blood began to trickle down her side, seeping into her underwear as it started to bead down her thigh. "Shit...shit..."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

The flood of undiluted animal-like instinct brought on by the sudden surge of adrenaline heightened her senses just enough to hear the shooter, or more precisely, his footsteps. Quick and light, a single pair coming from behind her. Too close, he was getting sloppy and anxious rather than play it safe. Or he was desperate.

Ada held her breath as she clutched her side, trying not to scream out in agony as the blood pooled through her fingers. The bullet wound felt like a through and through; the round wasn't wedged in her hip or body, which was at least better than anything else. She could still move, albeit it would be very painful to do so.

Ada pressed her back against the low wall of the cubicle that hid her. He was behind her in the corridor, and hit her when she was looking ahead. Sneaky bastard.

The footsteps came closer, entering the room, then paused. One step-

_Now!_

Ada lunged out of cover fast and low and threw herself at the shooter just on the other side. She speared him in the midsection with her tackle, driving him back against the frame of the door. He grunted as they slammed into it, further expelling his breath when her momentum carried through to his gut.

Without giving him a chance to recover, Ada grabbed the arm with the gun. They tussled briefly before she smacked the inside of his wrist hard twice. The handgun shook free from his grip and clattered softly to the generic-colored carpet beneath them, where Ada kicked it away.

The element of surprise wore off. Before she could even think to attack him directly, the shooter rammed his elbow into her gut, which already on fire from the gunshot wound. Ada gasped as her breath left her, and her vision shattered as the back of his fist cracked against her nose. She released his arm and stumbled back clutching her face, but managed to turn halfway out of the punch that followed.

The shooter dove away, going for the gun that was now laying some feet away. He scrabbled over it and got it up just as Ada's fingers closed around a desk lamp. She pitched it at him with a wild overhand and he raised both of his arms reflexively to ward the object off before it hit him. It gave her just enough time to lunge and tackle him again before he could sight and shoot, sending them sprawling across a desk. Stationary, a cup, a monitor, and a small file rack crashed to the floor as their bodies landed on the surface.

Ada once again latched onto his arm and slammed it hard over the edge of the desk. He released it and Ada drew her hand back and began to pummel his face. She got two good hits in before he swung suddenly. An answering machine in his hand collided with the side of her face, coating her cheek and jaw in an exquisite pain that seemed to shoot right through to the other side. Colors mingled together, nothing making sense for a moment as even the pain faded.

Just like that, he was on her, his right arm wrapped around her throat, his left pressing cruelly on the back of her neck, trying to pop the vertebrae as he squeezed, cutting off her air in the process. Ada reached back and got a handful of his hair, then wrenched herself forward. He was bigger and heavier and using it to his advantage, but she managed to half-toss half-drag him clumsily to the floor, falling with him in the process.

As she clamored to her feet, the side of her face still screaming in pain from the blow, she caught a hazy glimpse of her attacker. Street clothes, jeans and a shirt, but with a holster at his belt. He looked like an agent, but his tactics weren't the same as the others that pursued her. He shot her from the shadows on sight, and wasn't trying to subdue her...no, he was outright trying to kill her.

_One of their guys? In the GSA?_

Ada didn't have time to ponder his motives through her pain-frayed nerves. The agent, or whoever he was, immediately lashed out with a kick which hit her square in the stomach. All of her breath was once again shoved out by her already sore diaphragm. She somehow managed to turn her body and raise her arm, blocking the punch aimed for her jaw, then shoved forward, setting him off balance and getting in a quick one-two jab hook.

"Ugh...!" Ada wheezed as he stumbled back, almost folding in half as her body protested the quick rapid movements in her hips. She could almost feel the hole in her side beginning to tear at the edges, like a saw was slowly cutting through her. The trickle down her leg had turned into a stream, tracing along anklet of her high heel before running down the glossy black coat and dripping to the floor.

He recovered and attacked again. Ada blocked the initial volley of punches, but the wound slowed her down, gelling her reactions. His knuckles hammered her temple, shorting out her vision as he sent her to the ground. He latched onto her neck again, looking for that quick, efficient kill, but Ada jabbed her hand back, digging the tips of her fingers into his trachea.

The agent gagged loudly as his windpipe was assaulted, then tipped back as Ada wound her leg up and kicked with all her might, cutting his legs out at the knees. All form of style and technique gone, Ada threw herself on him, punching and clawing, trying to do as much damage as her body would allow.

A blunt forearm batted her away, and a vicious knee shoved her off of him. Ada moaned and gripped her injury in reflex, trying to override her body's commands to submit. The agent grabbed a fistful of her raven black hair, already on his feet, then assaulted her once again, striking her jaw and beating her ribs with his fists, finally ramming her against a wall.

One of her eyes only saw a thick haze of red. She wasn't sure if it was the blood that was pouring from the cut when he hit her with the answering machine, or if it was simply swelling shut from the constant abuse. The agent attacked, but she blocked, countering with a desperate set of punches. He rebounded off the last and punched back, then grabbed her by the throat and shoved.

They fell again in a heap on another desktop, a fist connecting with her face as the agent punched it onto the surface. Ada let out a wet gasp of blood as it flew from her mouth in flecks. The world swam again, but she fought to stay conscious. He was literally on top of her, beating her in weight by about 90 pounds. The position could have been pornographic, except for the fact that in addition to all the blood, neither of them were aroused.

He straddled her further, pinning one arm at the elbow under his knee, the other at the wrist with his hand. She didn't even feel the cord through her hazy senses and struggling until he released his grip on her wrist leaned his weight on it. Ada gagged, realizing in horror that the deep breaths she needed were no longer available. The agent had wound a computer cable across her throat, and was now throwing all his weight down on it.

Ada's breathless hacks and the agent's deeper controlled breaths intertwined as he strangled her, forcing her head back over the edge of the desk at the neck. The best Ada could do was to push against his face, but he flicked his head and her hand slipped on his sweat laden skin. She clawed desperately for an ear or a fistful of hair, but all he had to do was tip his head up, out of her reach as her groping grew weaker. Her legs kicked in futile desperation fueled by the growing absence of air, writhing beneath him as she uselessly twisted under his larger frame.

Her hand fell away, weakly scrabbling at the desktop for something, anything. A keyboard, a mouse, what might have been a phone, then something smooth and cool, just slightly larger than her hand. Ada didn't hesitate; she grabbed it and swung. The drinking glass or paperweight, whatever it had been, shattered against the agent's face. The crystalline impact set him off balance, ripping a jagged cut on his brow. It was just enough for her to wiggle her other arm free and punch right into his trachea with the last of her strength.

He stumbled back coughing and wheezing while Ada slid off the desk doing the same. The cord tangled around her neck, and she had to pry it off before her own weight choked her further. She heard his strained breaths, but didn't realize until it was too late as to why he hadn't attacked again...

All of her efforts had been useless. He'd gotten to the gun from where it had fallen earlier, and raised it with a shaky step forward, closing one eye to look down the sights. He still gripped his throat with one shredded hand, the other clenched around the gun so tight it trembled. It steadied, and Ada braced herself for the shot-

"_Bryce!_"

The agent literally stumbled, his eyes widening slightly as he froze. Ada froze too, but only because she recognized the voice. It was all she could do to not collapse in relief.

_Leon..._

Sure enough, he was just barreling into the room from behind the agent, his own weapon up and ready. The agent, Bryce as Leon called him, glanced back at him before locking his eyes back onto Ada tersely. A brief fit of rage crossed his eyes before relaxing. The ice cold killer in his eyes faded, becoming triumphant. He opened his mouth and coughed once, then swallowed hard and spoke raggedly. "Got her Leon. She put up a hell of a fight, but I got her."

Leon first eyed Bryce's weapon, pointed at Ada, then past him at Ada herself, then back to Bryce, surveying the destroyed office in the process. "What the hell happened?"

"Found her." Bryce coughed again. "She fought back."

"He's-" Ada hacked a wheezing gasp from her ragged throat. "He's lying, Leon."

"Shut up!" Bryce roared at her. Ada glared back at him defiantly, grimacing as the salt on her skin stung the cuts on her face. A trickle of blood had made its way down her face, beading over the raised abrasions and dripping from her chin.

"Don't listen to him," she rasped, then spit out the blood that was collecting in her mouth. "He's one of Wesker's."

"I said _shut up!_" Bryce yelled again and stepped forward, threatening with the gun.

"Bryce!" Leon bristled, "Back off." His gun was still pointed directly into the agent's back, steady as a rock in both hands. "Listen very carefully. I need you to drop the gun."

Bryce looked back at Leon, shocked. "What?!"

"Bryce, drop the gun," Leon repeated, his tone taking on a warning.

Slowly and carefully, while he was distracted, Ada glanced to the desk she was propped up on. She saw the glint of silver in the low light from a pair of scissors half covered by a sheet of blank paper. Inch by inch, without trying to look at it or draw attention, she moved her trembling hand closer.

"Why?" Bryce asked. "Wong is right there, and you want _me_ to disarm?"

"Someone was working against us from the inside," Leon said tightly. "They crippled our radios and blew the cameras. It made it perfect to move around undetected while the building was being locked down. I find you here without backup beating the living shit out of her. How does that make you look?"

_So he knows. He knows it might be him. Christ Leon, thank you for being so goddamn smart._

Bryce was mostly focused on Leon, but his weapon was still trained on her beaten form. In her prime, Ada might have considered making a move, but in her current state, she'd end up dead. It was up to Leon now.

Bryce shook his head, as if he was amazed at what he was hearing. "And you suspect me? After four fucking years of working together, you suspect _me_? After all those missions, after everything, you fucking suspect _me?_"

"I understand if you're a little uptight about it Bryce, but the fastest way for you to clear your name is to drop the fucking gun," Leon all but growled. "This is Wesker we're dealing with. If there's even a _chance_ that one of us is working for him, I will guarantee you that I will rip this goddamn building down to find him. Now _drop the gun._"

Ada saw it coming a second before it happened. The three of them stood in a straight line with Leon at the end. If he fired this close at Bryce, he might hit her in the process, and she knew that Leon would never take that risk. Whether or not Bryce knew that was irrelevant, as he was now cornered and desperate.

Then it happened. Bryce feinted, letting his shoulder sag in apparent defeat, then in a blur, spun and crouched, bringing his weapon to Leon. At the same time, Ada lunged, scissors clenched in her fist as she threw herself into Bryce, grabbing him around the shoulders to throw him off balance. The gun went off. The scissors came around like a dagger and pierced his neck much easier than she thought they would.

As the butt of her palm hit the side of his neck, driving the twin blades to the handle, he let out a gurgle. A stream of crimson spurted from his sliced carotid, gushing over her hand. Bryce collapsed to the floor, taking Ada with him, where he twitched once, then went still.

Ada squirmed and shoved at the warm heavy weight until she pulled her arm free from beneath it. He was dead, eyes glazed over and wide as his neck spurted out one last stream of blood from beneath the blades wedged in his throat. There was a groan of agony, and she realized with widening eyes that it was coming from Leon.

He was on the floor, having dived to the side when Bryce moved and fired. He was fast, Ada knew that from their confrontations in Spain, but this time it wasn't enough. An irregular red hole had been punched in his chest, near the shoulder but frighteningly inward towards his vital organs.

"You idiot," she hissed, feeling a distinct urge to slap him at the same time as help him. "You idiot! Why the _hell_ didn't you shoot?" But she already knew why.

"Too...close..." he gasped, his face strained in pain as he fought to keep from screaming. There was a wheeze in his voice. The bullet could have clipped a lung, maybe punctured it entirely. Had the bullet been on the other side, closer to his heart, he'd be dead.

This marked the second bullet Leon Kennedy had taken for Ada Wong. Her mind drifted back to the Raccoon City sewer when he shoved her out of the way of Annette Birkin's wild shots. His actions shocked her then and still shocked her now, but then again, old habits died hard.

Ada shook her head, clearing that horrible night from memory and focused on Leon's wound. "It's pretty bad, but you'll make it, just don't move." With the aid of her teeth, she tore a strip from the hem of her dress and wadded it against the hole, pressing his hand over it.

She looked to the door. It was still clear...if she moved now, she could still escape. But the thought of running off while Leon was injured, made her sick. On the other hand, re-capture was equally as disconcerting. Her injuries weren't making it any easier. Blood loss was making her dizzy and weak, and every part of her head throbbed, especially her nose and jaw. Through his own pain, he seemed to sense her dilemma and gripped her wrist with his free hand.

"Ada...help us..." Leon grunted softly, grimacing hard. "We can win, but you need to help us...help _me._"

A pained look crossed her face, and it wasn't from her injuries. He was all but pleading with her now. He was right, of course, but only half. She could provide invaluable intel for them against Wesker, against many of the bioweapon manufacturers in the world. But would that wipe her slate clean? The government wouldn't just give her a pat on the back and send her on her way, not with her past.

Leon wanted a happy ending, but he wasn't willing to see the real ending.

"I can't Leon, not in the way you want me to," she said, overlaying her hand on his. It took every ounce of emotional control that was left after the fight to keep her voice steady. "Not the way this has played out so far. But what we've had, it's all been real, every second of it. Some day, that might be enough...no, it _will_ be enough."

She heard the footsteps, and a lot of them, growing louder and moving rapidly along with voices. If she moved now, they would find Leon and get him help while she got away.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, then pried his fingers off her wrist and backed away.

"Ada...wait..." she heard him groan as she turned away and ran.

It was a line she was all too familiar with.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

"So she got away?"

Fischer nodded his head gravely. Each motion of his head was a hammer, nailing the cold hard fact in deep and sealing it in with a single word. "Yes."

Leon sank back against the hospital gurney, grimacing in more than one kind of agony. His chest felt like it was on fire. The burning sensation that was the bullet wound spread slowly until his pectoral region underneath the mass of bandages felt like it had been dipped in acid. Bryce's shot had passed right through him, the hollow point chipping just beneath the second rib of his right side, nicking the top of his lung. Every breath felt like drawing in broken glass. The exit wound had torn a chunk of the bottom of his shoulder blade, something that he was going to be in surgery for within the hour.

All of that paled in comparison to just how badly his heart hurt.

It had been about 20 minutes from the time he got shot and Ada ran, and now he was in the GSA infirmary, laying uselessly on a cot when he should be working to track her down. He had blacked out for a while from the sudden blood loss and shock. The last thing he saw after her crimson form vanished were the legs and feet of the pursuing agents. When he woke up, he was patched and in the infirmary.

Headquarters had settled down a few degrees, but not entirely. The lockdown had been lifted, but security was still tripled on every inch of the building. The military still patrolled the halls, looking for more sabotage while the entire IT and maintenance staff worked on bringing the security system back online.

Fischer stood next to Leon's bed, his suit jacket thrown lazily over a chair and looking tired for the first time in a long time. Leon knew his boss was uptight about things, and that having a wild chase within his building complete with gunfire probably took a lot out of him. After all, he did answer to the President, and the resulting paperwork of the incident must have been astronomical.

Behind him, her face a little better color and somewhat composed, stood Hunnigan. She blinked frequently, having lost her glasses in the explosion. She looked older, more attractive, and slightly less geeky, but Leon was in no mood for the usual playful flirting, and it was obvious that neither was she. The cut on her forehead had been stitched, and her hand had been bandaged, now a thick roll of white with the tips of her fingers sticking out. Her navy blazer had a few grimy patches on it from the debris of the server explosion, and the front of her skirt was still crusty with her blood.

"How close were we?" Leon asked wearily. The first twinges of sedative began to make themselves known, dulling the pain in his chest and nudging him gently towards sleep.

"Considering the fact we're almost in the center of the nation's capital in a government building, I'd say very," Fischer said dryly as he crossed his arms. "The team that found you gave chase. It looks like Wong broke through a window one floor down before we could get the military to fully cordon off the building. She was bleeding pretty badly, to the point were they could have followed the blood trail. They did, and it suddenly ended in the middle of the street."

"Someone picked her up," Leon realized hoarsely. "Did they see anyone?"

Fischer shook his head. "No. They lost sight of her as she rounded the building for about 10 seconds tops, and when they came around, she had vanished. Like she was never there to begin with. I've already got people watching the airports and stations, but with the status we're in right now, it won't be hard for her to slip through."

"Shit..." Leon muttered. He could imagine what Fischer was telling him; Ada's blood streaked across the snow and pavement, crossing into the street, then abruptly ending. Did someone rescue her, or was it more of Wesker's men to come and finish her off?

"The doctors barely let me in here Kennedy, and I'm inclined to agree with their opinion. You're stable for now and you need surgery, but I've got one dead agent and an organization in chaos. Before I leave I need to know what happened, from the start."

"The radios were out, so me and Hunnigan headed to security to see what the problem was," Leon said. "Someone had dropped off a disc that scrambled our communications, and they rigged it in the process. That's how Hunnigan got hurt, and that's how they crippled the network. I issued a lockdown and went to secure Ada, but when I caught up, she'd already broken free..."

He went on to tell how he worked his way through the lockdown, following the trail of bullet holes, shell casings, and wounded agents and personnel. There were no casualties, with the exception of Bryce, so there was at least that to be thankful for. He had caught a lucky break when the soldiers in the building reported her in the East wing.

"Most of the search teams were getting caught up elsewhere, so I moved in alone. I found Ada and Bryce engaging each other...hell, he was trying to kill her. I ordered him to stand down, under the pretense that we'd been compromised. When he refused to drop his gun, he turned on me and fired. Ada came out of nowhere and hit him with a letter opener or scissors or something. It dropped him instantly."

"Scissors." Fischer confirmed. "You think it was Andres who planted the jammer and rigged it?"

"I would say yes," Leon sighed. "Ada suspected it too, but..." This was the other little thing that was nagging him, along with the dozen other things that just happened. "Bryce _could_ have planted the disc, or someone else could have done it while he got into position. We don't know when the disc actually arrived in security, so it's impossible to tell. Bryce was on Wesker's payroll, that much I can tell you. Whether he's the only one, well..."

Leon trailed off. He didn't need to say anymore, and all the talking was taking a lot out of him. The knowledge that one traitor in their midst was bad enough, even if he was already dead. The very thought that there might be more was even worse. It made his whole body tense just thinking of it.

"I see what you're saying," Fischer said, nodding in agreement. "Which is why I brought Agent Hunnigan with me. Both of you are in rough shape, and you're going to need time to recover. When you both have, we need to do something about this. After finding out that Andres was a double agent, I feel like the less people I talk to about this, the better. We'll need to take steps in order to weed out any others, if there are indeed any."

"What about the President and his family?" Leon asked. "The GSA provides their security. If we've been compromised-"

Fischer raised a hand. "I've handpicked President Graham's entourage myself after the incident in Spain. All the agents guarding them are trustworthy."

_Just like I thought Bryce was after all the time we worked together,_ Leon thought darkly, but he had to trust Fischer. There was nothing he could do about it anyways. If everyone started jumping at shadows and pointing fingers, the entire organization would disintegrate, and then they'd have a _real_ crisis on their hands.

Fischer departed, wishing Leon a speedy recovery and taking his jacket from the back of the chair. Hunnigan hung back for a while longer and caught his eye, then gave him a very tired exhale of breath, looking beaten about the entire situation.

"So, how are _you_ doing?" Leon asked her with a yawn.

Hunnigan lifted her hand to examine it, flexing her fingers lightly before grimacing. "Well, looks like I've got some sick leave coming up. We both do, for that matter." She squinted worriedly at him. "That round came pretty close to some important parts Leon. An inch lower and they would have you on a respirator."

"Yeah." Leon grinned. "Lucky me."

"And afterwards," she continued, "We get to look at each and every person here under a microscope. I can't even tell you how long that is going to take. All the agents, employees, and records we have to go through...it's going to be a nightmare."

"I'd call it a necessary evil. Having someone who you trust suddenly turn a gun on you is a horrible feeling. If we have to go through everyone, we will."

They both fell silent. Hunnigan shifted on her feet, as if waiting for more.

Leon sighed. "Well, what do you think? I screwed up, didn't I?"

She blinked. "What do you mean?"

"With Ada. I didn't shoot Bryce because she could have gotten hit. I took a bullet for her...again, and she ran off...again. She got away because of me. I think that qualifies as screwing up."

"No Leon, you didn't screw up," Hunnigan said, shaking her head amusingly. "Maybe you were already out, but she tried to help you. We found a piece of her dress acting as a bandage. Making sure you were okay came before her own needs. And besides, I think you did a pretty good job. You endangered yourself for the sake of a prisoner and the information she had, all the while exposing a traitor in the agency. That takes some guts, and I've never known your instincts to be wrong."

She was right. It wasn't like Ada had simply killed Bryce then hit the ground running. She had plenty of time to stick around and chew him out, then try and bandage his wound. He wasn't imagining the look on her face either. For that brief moment, she lost her cold exterior, and an emotional woman blossomed; a woman who cared about him. Maybe he really was reaching her...

"Like I said," she continued, "She feels the same way about this, so don't think she isn't hurting too."

"Thanks Hunnigan." Leon lifted his hand, which she clasped firmly in her good hand. "Now why don't you head home and get some rest?"

She nodded. "Will do. Same goes for you Leon. We've got a _lot_ of work ahead of us."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Of all the places Ada expected to wake up, a hospital was not one of them.

She woke slowly as if coming out of a very deep sleep and managed to get one eye open. The other was being mashed shut by something soft. When she reached up to touch it, she felt stiff white gauze and traced a bandage that wrapped beneath her bangs, the edge of which was pressing a wad of gauze down on her left eye. Her hand slowly slid into focus under bright florescent lights; strips of white were wrapped over her bruised and scabbed knuckles, as well as the knife wound on her forearm. Two fingers on her other hand had been splinted together, and an IV tube ran into her wrist, streaming a clear fluid into her.

_What...the hell?_

It came slowly, but the past made itself known. The last memory she had was stumbling into the street. It had felt like all of her blood had slowly drained from the various unnatural holes in her body. She remembered a vehicle, but not what kind or who was driving. Someone had grabbed her, and the world just sort of fell apart. The next thing she realized was waking up in the hospital.

Her heart beat faster. An unfamiliar room with no recollection of how she got there or who grabbed her was bad for any woman, not just the secret agent kind. Her conscience demanded action, but her body was moving in slow motion, every movement deliberate and fuzzy as she checked herself and the area around her.

The clammy, sweaty interior that had been her dress last she felt was gone, now replaced by a soft white gown. She was naked underneath, but wrapped in so many different kinds of bandages she may as well have been mummified.

A slight nagging sting slowly nibbled on her hip as she propped herself up on her elbows; the bullet wound. It had been wrapped with plenty of gauze and bandages, all of them dry and free of blood. Every square inch of her torso felt sore as her gut muscles worked to raise her body.

"Glad to see you're up Wong."

Ada jerked at the dry voice, adrenaline flushing into her veins. She was wide awake now, every trace of sleepiness gone. Her one good eye widened in surprise. "Donovan?"

Sure enough, the stocky agent she had been assigned to kill barely a day ago was casually leaning against the doorway to the room, arms folded across his chest. He was wearing a plain windbreaker and jeans. Street clothes.

Ada didn't know what to think for a second. Her mind was nowhere near the level to figure out how he escaped the police when she left him handcuffed to a pole. All she could think about was _who_ Donovan was. "Here to kill me?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Not being paid to," he said lazily.

_Well that's a relief...I think._

Ada licked her chap lips. There was a small scab crusting over on the corner of the upper one. "Then why_ are_ you here?"

Donovan leaned off the doorway and stepped further into the room, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets. "I think I'll let Hayes explain everything. He's a lot better at it."

"Hayes?" Ada blurted.

From behind Donovan, the S CEO walked into the room. He still sported the same wavy businessman haircut he had at the banquet in Prague, though he didn't look as elegant in dress pants, a white shirt, and a tie instead of a tuxedo.

"What the hell is going on?" Ada demanded as she voiced her earlier thoughts. She leaned up on her hands, much to the displeasure of her injured hip, preparing to take action. Bed ridden or not, she could put up one hell of a fight.

Hayes saw the discomforting grimace flit across her face and motioned for her to settle down. "Rest assured Miss Wong, you are safe and neither Donovan or I have any intentions of harming you. Please, relax. You might tear open one of those wounds."

Ada didn't have much choice in the matter, even if she wanted to get up. The strength in her arms was all but sapped, and her hip kept begging her to stop moving. The initial fight-or-flight response had settled down, and now that she was fully awake she realized just how badly everything really hurt. So she settled back onto the bed and tipped her head back into the pillow, trying to clamp down on the pain with some slow breathing.

"Where am I?" she asked Hayes as he sat down on a chair next to the bed.

"In an S owned hospital in downtown Baltimore."

_Baltimore...not that far from DC._

"And how did I get here?"

"The short version: Donovan brought you here. But I don't think that's going serve as an adequate explanation. Let me elaborate." Hayes leaned back in his chair, interlacing his fingers. "After we parted ways in Prague, several of my own people reported that there were American agents in the country. We keep a close eye on government activity, given the nature of our company, and the fact that they were so close to us in a foreign country was a tad discomforting."

"You thought they were there for you?" Ada asked.

"After Wesker fled with the parasite, it seemed very likely, since we weren't sure of his motives. For all we knew, he turned us in out of spite, a way to thin the competition in the market so to speak. But it seemed we were mistaken; they were there for you."

_Well obviously..._

"I realized that we didn't have any operatives close enough to the DC area to rescue you immediately," Hayes continued. "Since you eliminated my men holding Donovan, he was still in police custody in Philadelphia." He glanced to the other agent. "Donovan was more than willing to help us out, and I was more than happy to have a former agent of the man who betrayed us working for me."

Now it was Ada's turn to look to Donovan. "I take it he paid you a lot?"

Donovan smirked and nodded. "Oh yeah."

Typical of him, though Ada wondered why he defected in the first place when the organization paid him so handsomely. Then she realized that Donovan was just covering his own ass. If Wesker and Crow had been willing to slay the entire inner circle of the organization, they must have knocked off a few agents as well. Who wouldn't get a little nervous if they found out their employers killed a bunch of their coworkers?

_I guess it's a good thing that I was Crow's favorite. I know Wesker didn't think too highly of me. I was probably the first on his list..._

"So you paid Donny to come break me out," Ada said. "Why? I already told you I'm not interested in working for you."

"I wouldn't say I'm the one who broke you out," Donovan interjected. "You did that on your own. I just had to scoop your half-dead ass off the pavement. Perfect timing with that, by the way. I was thinking I'd have to lose a bunch of heat first before getting you here."

"Miss Wong, you were the last few pieces to a very large puzzle," continued Hayes, as if Donovan hadn't interrupted. "Before your arrival in Prague, I had been acting on whatever little I had obtained from Donovan, and I had no idea if he was a credible source. Your presence confirmed that he was telling the truth, that Wesker and his partner were acting for their own benefit, and not the benefit of their organization."

"You still haven't answered my question," Ada reminded him.

"In short, I felt that I owed you. Besides, if it would profit Wesker for you to die, it would profit me to keep you alive."

"Then I guess I should be grateful." Ada meant it. Without their help, she would still be locked away in the GSA headquarters, only now missing a few pints of blood and some broken bones.

"You're still seriously injured, so I won't deprive you of rest." Hayes stood up, fixing one of the cuffs of his sleeves. "Please take your time in recovering. I give you my word that as long as you're here, no harm will come to you. What you choose to do in the future is your decision, though my offer to work for S still stands."

He left, followed by Donovan who shot her a poignant look that said 'it would be smart to take it.' Ada only weakly rolled her eyes in response.

She leaned back on her bed, fully letting her guard drop so she could rest comfortably in the soft white sheets. All of her injuries would make it next to impossible to move around, and even if she tried to, she'd stick out like a sore thumb. Wesker and Crow would find out that their assassin was dead and probably try to kill her again. For now, S was the safest place to be while she healed. Hayes was right about that at least...maybe.

How had the GSA known she was going to be in Prague? It wasn't a stray agent she bumped into who was going after a target of opportunity, it was an organized movement. It wasn't an accident, they _knew_ she was there. And when they captured her, there was an assassin already planted conveniently in their ranks, waiting for the right time to strike.

_There's too many possibilities. Wesker might have known Donny might run his mouth and that if I survived his first assassin, that I'd go after Hayes to confirm it. Or they could have me tagged...Shit, they could have bugged my PDA, and I never would have guessed. At least nothing I have from them is with me now, so they shouldn't be able to track me._

Wesker was terrifyingly smart, as was Crow. Manipulating the American government to make her an easy kill was child's play to them. The government took the fall all the while doing most of the work and receiving little information in the process while their assassin snuffed out a very troublesome thorn with ease. A very good deal.

So that wrapped up the past, but what about the present and the future? She was off the organization's payroll, without their resources. Hayes made it clear he wanted her for S, but she had no intention of joining a corporation that would likely meet the same fate as Umbrella. Plus, unlike Donovan, she didn't like to whore herself out only for the sake of money. Any interest in this conspiracy was now 100 percent personal.

_I can't go to Leon and I can't just walk away from this...Leon is neck deep in this war, and I'm the one who dragged him into it. I'm not going to sit around and let him get killed while I hide._

Leon...Ada exhaled through her nose and settled deeper. Inevitably, as it always did when she let it, her mind drifted to the man she left shot and bleeding. What kind of person did that make her? When she ran away from him in Raccoon City, she could at least lie to herself under the pretense that it was part of her mission, but now having accepted her feelings there was no way to sugarcoat it: she was a cold heartless bitch.

Even worse than the agony of her own wounds was the agony of his absence. He was probably lying in a bed just like her, only she should be in a vigil at his side while he recovered. She wanted to be with him and to tell him about all the things she felt about him.

She couldn't be the woman he wanted her to be, and she deserved every ounce of punishment inflicted that was upon her. But not him. Leon should be pushing her away, not chasing after her, and every time he got too close, she would run away and he would get hurt...they would both get hurt.

At the same time, it was him chasing her that kept her coming back to him. He was someone who wanted her not as a ruthless agent like Hayes did, but as a woman. It made her realize that there was one thing missing in her life, and that he was the one to fill the hole. Why couldn't she let him?

Ada closed her eyes, silently begging his forgiveness and wished, not for the first time in her life, that she would get a chance to redeem herself as a woman.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

"Right this way, Signore Crow," the Italian butler said, gesturing with his hand up the path.

Crow exited his limousine, allowing his driver to shut the door behind him. The villa that rose before him was massive, almost a mansion in itself. The butler lead the way while he followed behind casually, admiring the impressive structure. Built on the Mediterranean coast, the approach to the front of it was winding through the high, rocky Italian coastline, ensuring privacy behind carefully tended trees and foliage.

Once in front of it however, the building didn't hesitate to flaunt its excellence. The entire building was constructed from white stone that gleamed crisply in the sunlight. The roof was tiled in brown shale, giving the entire complex a rustic look, as if it had been around fro generations, which it probably had been. A long swimming pool sat in front of it, though he suspected it was more for aesthetics than practical use. After all, the sea was merely on the other side of the building.

The largest part of the villa was rounded like a quarter circle, consisting of two floors, with a patio on the first, a balcony on the second. On both floors the walls were paned with large windows, allowing for plenty of sunlight during the day. Extending on either side from this semi-rotunda were an east and west wing. The east had an illustrious fountain off its patio just near the pool, while the west maintained a simpler, more private design with smaller windows where the bedrooms were.

The bright hot sun of the afternoon bore down on the white stone of the patio, reflecting back up into the air as the butler led him to the villa. Crow tucked his hand inside his left inner jacket pocket and pulled free his handkerchief, dabbing at the beads of sweat forming below his gelled bangs. Black Armani might not have been the best choice for a record hot day along with a solid black dress shirt, but Crow looked good in very few other colors, and today was a very important day to look his best.

He flicked his Ray Bans back into place with a finger before returning his handkerchief. He brushed the empty holster under his arm that once held his custom Korth revolver. Crow had handed it over willingly enough when asked by the guards at the front gate, but made it very clear that the weapon held a particular sentimental value, and that if it was damaged or marred in any way, there would be hell to pay.

Once under the shingled canopy of the patio, it cooled considerably, and the inside of the villa was climate controlled as well as shielded from the sun. Crow removed his sunglasses, closing them with a flick of his wrist before depositing them in his front suit pocket. The inside of the rotunda was bare marble and hardwood floor, covered with Persian rugs. The walls were adorned with paintings, modern works by the look of it, bought straight from the museum walls. Every couch, chair, and table around a large fireplace were top notch and well kept in various shades of gray and white.

The butler led him through two halls before opening a door for him at the end of the second. This room, an office, held the same elegance the others did, though this one was modified by technology. At one end, beneath a set of floor to ceiling windows, was a desk of glass and stainless steel that housed not one but two computer monitors as well as a shut laptop off to the side. A flat monitor hung from the wall, next to another oil painting, though its screen was dark. All pieces of equipment were the latest hi-tech models, all bearing the triple pentagons of Tricell.

The room held other features, such as a bookcase filled with books, a small wet bar, and a miniature fireplace in the corner. Along one side sat a plush white leather couch with a glass coffee table in front of it, and what Crow identified as a Turkish wall hanging behind it.

"If you would please wait here," the butler instructed, indicating to the leather chairs before the desk, then departed without another word. Evidently, he didn't speak much English. Either that, or it was a poor attempt at intimidation.

Crow didn't mind the wait; the recent events had been weighing heavily on his mind, and whenever he could draw a moment to reflect on them, he would take it.

It was a shame that Ada had gone rogue. As much as he wanted to keep her close, she dug just a little too deep into their personal affairs. It seemed that Wesker was right about her all along, and he'd just been blinded by love. Still, admit it as he did, it pained him when he and Wesker ordered her elimination. He also felt a bit of admiration for her when Andres had been killed in the process. Even if she had betrayed him, he was enamored with her. There were no reports of her body being recovered, so it was very possible she was alive.

Crow could have offered her the world.

The sentimental thoughts on his former operative vanished when he heard the footsteps. Ada Wong, flawless as she might have been, was the past, and Crow never looked beyond the present. There was always something new and better around the corner.

The door opened behind him. "Mr. Crow, very sorry to have kept you waiting."

"Not a problem," he replied politely, rising to meet the woman who had entered, extending his hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Gionne."

The current Tricell Head of Genetic Engineering, Excella Gionne, was simply a magnificent woman. Crow had read her background reports, but they were nothing in comparison to seeing her up close. She was just inches shorter than him, yet the way she held herself one would never guess her green eyes had to look _up_ into his. Her face was small and perfect, fresh off of a painter's canvas, thick pouty lips in a small, polite smile that shimmered from high-end lipstick. The weave of her glossy hair was black onyx, deeper than the threads of his suit. The twisting folds of her beehive suggested it was modestly long, but the hairstyle simply contained it in a perfect bun without a single stray strand hanging across her forehead.

One look at her assured Crow that Miss Gionne wasn't bothered by the heat; the swathes of silk that served as her attire provided more than enough air to touch her skin. Her ivory dress seemed to wrap firmly around her hips, highlighting that predatory stroll as she walked to take his hand, yet seemed to drape loose over her upper torso. The plunging neckline and bare sides and back gave quite the eyeful. Everything was trimmed with brush strokes of gold; a bracelet around her wrist, the choker around her slender throat.

She greeted him politely enough with a handshake and smile, but the smile didn't quite meet her eyes. There was other thinking going on in her brilliant mind, and Crow got the sense that Excella believed he wasn't worth her time, like he was interrupting her from something far more important. Hardly surprising, given her history and current situation and her attitude against men. He intended to change her opinion very soon.

"I trust your travel here was pleasant?" she asked mildly, beginning the mandatory small talk as she moved to sit behind her desk.

Crow took the liberty of glancing up and down her form one last time before sitting back down in the plush leather chair. After all, he hadn't seen the backside yet, and it was just as gorgeous as the front. "Yes, pleasant enough, though I must admit I'm not used to this heat. Something of a record, I hear."

Excella gave a small 'hm' in assent as she delicately lowered herself into the high backed office chair behind the glass and steel desk. "Forgive me for getting straight to the point, but I'm curious as to why Health Corporate Financial wishes to do business with us." She spoke fluent English, though her words were laced with a distinguished European accent. "Especially since you refused to specify what you wished to meet with me about when you contacted us. I don't make it a habit to waste my time, Mr. Crow...so if you would please, explain your proposition."

"Straight to the point it is then. The HCF, my partner and myself, only associate itself with the best, Miss Gionne," Crow said. "Tricell is at the head of the pharmaceutics race, though several of its competitors are very close behind. I believe that with our help, Tricell can pull ahead without contest. Our organization offers top notch information sciences and research and development."

"A very generous offer, Mr. Crow, as well as presumptuous." Excella leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. The green in her eyes hinted at boredom, as if this meeting was merely a break from more pressing matters. Not unlike a cat before it ate a mouse. "Many offers have been presented to Tricell with your exact words, and most are turned away, as they are inferior to our own company. As you said, Tricell is at the top of the mountain; what is it that you can offer that it doesn't already have?"

"I suspect the main reason why many are turned away is because they simply are not the best choice for the kind of work we do," Crow said. "Many other companies wish to benefit from Tricell's expansion, but none of those companies wish to see it excel where it's strengths are. That is where my company comes in: we wish to strengthen what Tricell does best."

Excella narrowed her eyes slightly. "And what do you mean by that?"

"Why, I mean the development of bio-organic weapons, of course."

Crow caught the tiny raise of her eyebrow as he phrased the statement so nonchalantly. It was the only tell she made that they indeed had her convinced about the HCF's legitimate front, public health care. Tricell, probably Excella herself had probed into the HCF's history to see what they could use against them for leverage. It was all legitimate, a typical American based company.

Just like that, he'd let her sample just what kind of influence he could muster.

"Just what are you suggesting, Mr. Crow?" she asked, lightly folding her fingers beneath her chin. It was an innocent enough question. It put the ball in his court all without incriminating herself, should this be some kind of setup with hidden microphones recording their conversation. "Are you insinuating that Tricell has its hands in illegal activity?"

"We know much more about Tricell than the normal public, Miss Gionne. Don't misinterpret; this is exactly why my partner and I approached you. We can offer Tricell quite a lot." Crow smiled, then dug into his pocket, procuring a small flash drive which he held out to her. "A little token of our understanding. You'll see that it explains everything."

Warily, Excella glanced first at him, then at the drive in his hand, perhaps thinking this was some elaborate plot to tap into her computer. Evidently, she knew such things were only science fiction and took the device from him, then inserted it into the port on her modem and began to peck at the keyboard.

Crow leaned back pleasantly in his chair, smiling confidently as Excella began to pull up the files. He couldn't see the dual monitors as she worked, but he could see her eyes, and that was enough to interpret her expression. She had that musing look as she casually let her chin rest on the lower knuckles of her hand, her eyes scanning the contents the monitors displayed. That look soon hardened into anticipation, then wonder as her eyes widened and scanned back and forth faster. She was almost a genius; she knew what she was looking at.

"Where did you get this?" she breathed, not taking her eyes off the screens.

"Straight from the creators: Umbrella."

"They just handed the entire T series over to you?"

"Of course not, Miss Gionne," Crow said with his broadest smile yet. "_That_ is what my partner and I have to offer: the obtaining of knowledge otherwise inaccessible. What you see before you is only a fraction of the research conducted by Umbrella on the T-Virus. The rest was far too inconvenient to transport with me."

Not to mention that you _never_ played all of your cards at once. Compared to what else he and Wesker possessed, the T-Virus was a child's toy. Las Plagas was thousands of times more potent in itself, and then there was the G-Virus as well. Even so, try as they might, no company could replicate a fraction of Umbrella's research. To them, the T series was ambrosia.

She looked first to him, then to the corner of the room, lost in thought, then stabbed a finger forward to the intercom on her desk. "Fedele, clear my afternoon," she said briskly, then looked back to Crow with a renewed smile and rose to her feet. He detected a subtle difference in the way she moved. Gone were the straight-line business paths, now replaced by slower, more deliberate moves. The wag of her hips were more noticeable than ever.

"My apologies again, Mr. Crow," she said as she passed behind him. "I never offered you refreshments on a harsh day like this...You strike me as a man who enjoys a strong cognac, no?"

"Hmm, you'd be right, Miss Gionne. Very astute of you, though your apologies are hardly necessary. You have already been a generous hostess meeting me in your own home."

Excella busied herself at the small bar, dropping ice into two glasses before half filling both with cognac from a crystal decanter. Instead of moving back to her desk though, she hovered near the couch with the beverages. "Won't you join me? I'd like to talk more about your offer, and I sit at that desk for far too long."

Crow grinned inwardly as he moved to her. Excella handed him his drink, the glass already beginning to sweat from the temperature gradient between it and the warm air. She sat down, Crow doing the same and even going so far as to hook an arm on the back of the couch behind her. He doubted she'd mind, as he swirled his drink then took a sip. The cognac was indeed strong, but nonetheless pleasing to the taste. Like everything about her, it seemed to be the best.

"I'm curious as to know how you have such a wealth of knowledge Mr. Crow," Excella said as she took a feminine sip from her own glass before setting it on an end table. "Even Tricell and its competitors have been unable to retrieve or replicate that which Umbrella has done. These secrets simply don't reveal themselves. "

"In a way, they sort of do." Crow set his glass on the table before them, then met her piercing jade gaze merely inches from his own. "The world as we know it behaves in chaos; it's completely random. But these random events present themselves in certain patterns. Merely control the patterns, manipulate when they occur, and be in the right place at the right time, and you can have almost anything you desire in life."

"Hmmm...the control of events, the manipulation of information..." Daintily, she reached over and began to trace a pattern on his knee with her finger. "That hardly seems like a geneticist's methodology. I thought the HCF was about health care."

"I never said I was a geneticist, my dear. I leave that end of the spectrum to my partner. He handles while I provide." Crow glanced down. When sitting, the hem of her silk skirt seemed to rise, and her legs were nothing but thigh. Perfect, smooth skin, one leg crossed properly over the other. He reached out, touching the warm alabaster skin with the tips of his fingers, then traced it up until his entire palm rested on her upper thigh. "I'm more interested in how things work in a broader sense. After two doctorates in quantum mechanics, I find the physical world fascinating. Every tiny action can cause a catastrophic reaction. You just have to know how much to act to make the process benefit you."

"I see..." Excella pondered, her gaze never leaving his face. Her eyes flickered down, inspecting his lips before returning to his own brown eyes. "So what is HCF going to do for Tricell then?"

"Well, we have the information, and Tricell seems most fit to use it. You'll have complete access to the T series, right from where Umbrella left off before they're untimely problems. With it, Tricell will ascend to the top of bioweapons production. And I'm sure the Board of Directors will want to know where this sudden explosion of wealth and profit came from..."

This was the part that made it so convenient. Crow learned that the best way to manipulate Excella was to use her background. Her family was an offshoot of the Travis family, the original founders of Tricell. It wasn't hard to see through the company history how Excella was held back because her grandmother married into another family. This apparent 'handicap' was what was preventing her from ascending the corporate ranks, and he knew the woman would like nothing more than to grind the Tricell heads into the ground with her foot, figuratively or otherwise.

"...so no more dodging the question. Simply put, my partner and I will supply you with Umbrella's research. All we ask is your assistance in our own research, all of which will be shared with Tricell. In a few months, the Board of Directors will elect you to be the new CEO of Tricell, and you'll finally be able to show all of them their mistake for holding back the Gionne family from its true potential."

She leaned close, cocking her head slightly as her gaze bore deeper. "I can tell this will be a very profitable partnership..."

* * *

Crow stepped out of the villa and back into the harsh rays of the sun. His limousine was already purring in the roundabout driveway. He entered the vehicle, digging his phone out of his jacket pocket as his driver shut the door. He waited until they were down the driveway, the hit the speed dial. The line rang once before connecting.

"_I take it you were successful?_"

"Of course Albert. Excella Gionne gladly accepted the deal. She will give us full access to Tricell's facilities. With the T series, I predict she will secure the CEO position in a matter of months if not sooner. If they are still hesitant, we can dangle a few more treats for them without consequence. The company's secret connections to arms dealers will ensure the spread of the viruses and B.O.W's across the world even faster. Harvardville was the work of amateurs compared to the potential here."

"_Good._" Wesker's tone was curt. He sounded satisfied. "_We're behind schedule, but this will help cover some of the distance._"

His vehicle paused at it stopped at the gate. Crow rolled the rear window down with a flick of a switch and stuck his hand out expectantly to the guard at post. The guard placed his confiscated revolver in his hand. The limited Korth model gleamed silver before it entered the dark interior of the limo, its rosewood handle glowing dully in artificial light.

"Miss Gionne is quite a wonderful woman, Albert." Crow said as he rolled up the window and holstered his weapon. "I think you will admire her intelligence very much, as well as some of her other assets."

"_I look forward to meeting her._"

The line clicked dead.

**The End**

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**Author's Notes**

**A big thank you goes out to all those who read the original and decided to come back again! You were the ones who all asked for it, and I was happy to oblige. Most of my inspiration for this story arc comes from the Bourne series, specifically the action and settings. You don't want to know how much I had all three Bourne movie soundtracks playing in the past 5 months or so. But of course I wouldn't have written it to begin with had the fans not spurred me to do so.**

**As always, you can expect more Ada Wong in the future, but first I have a few other projects that require my attention. But I'm happy to listen to any suggestions people have for improving the story or the stories to come!**


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